Comparison will kill you

I am not perfect; I am not the greatest person, but I am more than fine with that, I am happy.

One of the greatest things that I could have ever realized is that there will never be someone who is more Me than I am, and that comparing myself to others can bring me one of two things: sadness from a feeling of inadequacy or false happiness and contentment. Comparison is the greatest way to feel horrible about yourself; not everybody was given the same abilities, we were not made to be exactly the same. We were made to be different and we were made to do amazing things, but if we're so focused on the fact that we can't do one thing, we may never realize all of the things we CAN do.

Think about it. What if we were surrounded by people who looked like us, dressed liked us, and thought like us? How much could we get accomplished? There is no doubt in mind that something would be accomplished, but I would never want to live in that world. How could we innovate, how would we have forward progress, if we all agree with each other and we are all the same? We were made different so that our world can be better and that we can do great things. Being different shouldn't be a reason for sadness, it should be a call to do something with what makes you so unique. Being different is something you should realize, embrace, and then make something out of it.

One thing that drives me absolutely crazy is when people set a goal to better than someone else or some other team, because being better than someone else doesn't mean anything for YOU and what YOU did. Your goals should be about you and how you can be better than you were, not how you can be better than someone else. Being able to be better than someone else does not mean you did an amazing job, it means that you did better than what someone else did. Base your goals on yourself and being better than who you were; setting intrinsic goals is so much more fulfilling and it helps grow you into a better version of yourself.

This isn't to say that that you should disregard others, that is not my point at all. You should always be learning from those around you, you should always be collaborating and getting ideas from other people. The people around you can help you immensely and they are there to help you grow, never doubt that. The people around you are different, and together you can do amazing things and you can all grow and learn. Your community is there to help you grow and develop, everyone should take advantage of that. Each person has a different purpose, so to try to be someone other than yourself is a waste of your potential and your talents.

At the end of day, all you can do is try your best to be your best possible self. We live in a society that wants to quantify our successes, we live in a society that tries to define us by the amount of games we won or our cumulative GPA, and we need to remember that we are MUCH more than just a set of numbers. If you can say you tried your hardest to be the best that YOU can be, I think you've succeeded for that day. I can tell you from experience you can still get that 4.0 and still feel completely unfulfilled with the work that you did.

So go, be happy, stop comparing yourself to those around you and figure out what you want for yourself and how you can strive to become better than who you were. Challenge yourself and see how much you can grow. Find the people who are passionate and create something bigger than yourselves. Your time is now.