Change trumps comparison

A toxic thought entered my mind on the eve of my 36th birthday.

"Why have I not achieved more in my life by now?"

Has it ever happened to you?

You have a quiet moment to yourself —maybe you're at your local coffee shop, on your sofa at home, or perhaps lazing on a beach—and out of nowhere, the thought enters your mind, and its gnawing darkness soon engulfs you entirely.

Maybe you imagined you'd have a few ankle biters running around. A high‐flying tech start up touted as the next 'disrupter'. Or be a renowned person who's won the Nobel Prize. An $xx million pad overlooking the ocean and a slew of holiday homes dotted around the globe. And that you had everything figured out.

But NONE. OF. THAT. HAPPENED.

In these moments, it's easy to dissolve into a puddle of self-pity — especially if you look around you. You look at others and compare your path to theirs. Why are we so obsessed with benchmarks and timeframes? Why do we allow our internal systems to be regulated by other's external facades?

"She won the 40 under 40 award."

"He made the Forbes Young Rich list before he was 25."

"He was the youngest CEO in a global business valued at $6b."

Why do we care so much? We don't even know these people plastered all over society rags and business magazines. But yet, there's still a searing burn, right?

"Why wasn't it me?" the little voice inside you cries.

Everyone has their own path, and it's not linear by any means.

Comparing yourself to others is a fruitless exercise which spirals you into a destructive mindset of "not good enough".

Don't be that unhappy, envious person who's ungrateful for what they have and spends each moment lusting after what they don't. Stop looking back at the past, it's full of 'should haves' and 'could haves' that do not serve you.

If you understand only one thing then let it be this: You have a choice. You are enough. You cannot change the beginning, but you can rewrite your ending - at any time you damn well please.

It's easy to feel irrelevant in this hyper-connected and overstimulated world of ours. Believe me, I have been there. You wake up, go to work, get back, maybe make dinner and watch Netflix until you fall asleep. You're just going through the motions.

You forget what your role is: To be of use, to add value, to enjoy your time here on this planet, is it not?

What's the alternative? Refuse to get out of bed and pledge unwavering devotion to growing that massive chip on your shoulder?

NEWSFLASH: Life is unfair. Bad things happen, often to good people. Get over it.

We live under the falsehood that only grand things matter. You don't have to solve the housing affordability crisis to make a contribution to this world of ours. Similarly, you don't need to become a famous person with 2 million followers to have an impact. You must believe that you matter. That you can change anything about yourself and your current situation. You just have to want it bad enough to spur you into action.

Sometimes it takes a while to get where we want to be, and that's ok. It may require a few U-turns and stop-starts. That doesn't render the journey useless. We should flip the focus from cramming as much as possible into each 8-hour work day, to enjoying it more. This is sometimes easier said than done. There are days we overdose on the HATE‐orade, abhorring our work and our days.

What do we do? We justify. We dangle a lofty goal in front of our faces. Everything will be all right in the end, as long as I achieve that goal... Whether it's a job, promotion, profits, bestseller, or a #1 Eurovision hit! What if that doesn't happen?

Yeah, we feel pretty shitty about it.

We don't need more motivation.

We need to realise whatever we're doing now matters, whatever we have now, is enough. You know what else we need to do?

Stop comparing ourselves to people who are at a different stage in life.

So what if this person is richer / skinnier /more famous / more "accomplished" / <insert superlative here> than you?

Comparison is the thief of joy. Steadfastly holding onto beliefs of where you "should be" in life constantly reminds you of who you are not, instead of celebrating who you are NOW.

This is a reminder to myself, as much as it is my way of raising awareness of the self-inflicted abuse we hurl at ourselves, because we're not where we thought we'd be.

Let's stop the misery. Life doesn't have to make sense. It just has to matter.

And if you start acting like your life does, then it will.