“Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle, or your middle to someone else’s end. Don’t compare the start of your second quarter of life to someone else’s third quarter.
Tim Hiller
Remember that everyone has their paths and ways.
Every day, I see in my office that the people have a massive room of jealousy in their hearts. I do not criticize anyone; I can’t, even if I want to. The reason is that I have been the one, too. I feared losing face with my coworkers or colleagues, so I kept getting jealous of what others had in their lives and why they had. There were many reasons to envy others, especially those with higher ranks than me; it was so good for them to have everything.
Don’t compare your beginning to Someone Else’s Middle is a true phrase that indicates that we should gradually move in small steps and not compare ourselves with others in work and life.
I was helpless to escape the trap of getting jealous, so I know the positive and negative effects these things have on you. This is why I am sharing some details of the feelings and their impact on our environment.
The first thing is that no matter what, everyone is different. Even twins born together with a similar appearance can not be the same in spending their lives. Some are very hardworking, and some are very smart enough to figure out everything for themselves. Some are lucky enough to get everything and a lot struggle.
Struggling means sharpening one’s skills first and then entering the market to sell one’s products or services or even one’s self to survive.
Those strugglers can become super rich based on their luck and hard work or through illegal ways, but that got the chance. The reason for getting jealous and eyeing other’s fate and their blessings. This idea is like a fish seeing the sky to fly. Looking at others’ ways of doing things and achieving success is their hard work, and their path and destiny differ from yours.
We already have created so much mess in our lives when we realize this. After reaching over here, I have learned that every journey has its beginning; it could be difficult or easy for others and you, but without the start, you can not move further; this is the initial path of every destination. So when we take the start, it might not be others who start too; it is more likely that they have reached their destination or maybe they are in the middle and have started success again so far.
In this state where you have to bear the initial step, this feeling emerges when we rush to the other step and do not appreciate what we have already made up to this level.
Stop rushing to the next level and learn every detail of what life has planned for you to teach you. You might lose your path for nothing if you keep looking to others. Looking at others and their success will not change your destiny or path, but you will eventually lose your path. Let us take the example of two men driving their cars on the road; one has high speed and experience in driving, and the other is a newcomer while both are driving decently. Still, the newcomer is only focused on the different cars and drivers. If he keeps going like this, what would happen in the end?
He might end up in a jeopardized condition.
This will not affect the other car driver and his path; you will be in bad condition. This is a total self-loss.
Here is one of the sayings by Marquis de Condorcet
“Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of another.” – Marquis de Condorcet
There is no comparison between humans because everyone is special and unique, and everyone has their skills and specialties they are good at. This has nothing to do with other’s success and your failure. If I start looking down on myself because I can only write one book a month, my fellow is a famous scriptwriter who can write full movies in a month.
Is this a fair comparison?? NO!
My skills are not on a single page, even though he gained experience from his hard work and what I am doing. I am just looking at him hating myself and criticizing myself for not being competent enough. This is wild, but it is not only me. Everyone is in this state.
Being envious spreads negative vibes.
The longer you stay in this condition, the more negativity surrounds you. You can not work in peace, and it will not be easy to motivate yourself to achieve your goals.
How to overcome this?
Overcoming such feelings, you are not a bad option to consider. You can change your attitude towards others anytime. This all depends upon you. The basis of overcoming anything is realization. First, if you realize that you are doing this wrong, you can easily overcome it. Then comes the second category, those who do not realize that this deed is terrible and is the reason for their stressful behavior.
Here are the steps to making yourself happy again. Follow them and let your fears of losing and looking down fade away.
- Accept yourself as you are and know your strengths.
- Be motivated for yourself first.
- Count on your blessings all the time and appreciate them
- Focus on your dream
- Find positivity in your surroundings, not negativity.
Accept and love yourself.
The first thing you will do is look in a mirror, see how perfect you are, and appreciate yourself for whatever you have in your life. This is the love potion you need from you. You have to feed it to yourself first.
Start looking for what strengths are built in you. You should be aware of your strengths unless someone takes advantage of them; for example, you know how to deal and negotiate with others, and someone uses your strength to take advantage while leaving you in chaos.
The more you know yourself, the more you will feel blessed and happy for a lifetime because once you are blessed with some of your strengths, they will be with you forever; no one can take them from you, you know it.
When you know your strengths, you will gradually develop the sense to use them at the right time for the proper purpose and will not let others use them and use you for some evil purpose.
“To love is to stop comparing.” – Bernard Grasset.
Be motivated for yourself first.
When you start your day, try to take a second for yourself and give yourself a boost to motivate yourself. If you are still trying to compare your strengths to others’ strengths, keep in mind that there are always others who are more capable than you.
So, do not try to embarrass yourself for such reasons. Accept your weaknesses and improve them gradually.
When you do this activity daily, it will become your habit, and you will hold on to it with great effort, producing the result. You will know that there is only you; no one can be you. Love yourself before you love someone else first.
Then comes the point of respecting others; it is an everyday reality that we tend to criticize others when we feel less confident, so to feel more accessible and sound, we start blaming others that make them feel bad. They hit us back with even worse comments. This war creates restlessness in people’s lives and even your surroundings; people get upset, too.
Count on your blessings all the time and appreciate them
Everyone is blessed with many blessings; all it takes is the eye to see, the heart to feel, and a mouth to appreciate.
If you take a look around, there are vast numbers of blessings around you that you can not even count all in one day. Maybe all those people that you compare yourself with do not have these.
If you focus on what others have and do not appreciate what is in your ownership, you will never have enough; those things you fancy will never be enough to satisfy you. It would be best to stop yourself from this thinking to have a peaceful and happy life.
Think before you make any decisions and put yourself in a stressful situation. These are all your thoughts, but in reality, if you stop thinking in a bad way and love yourself for what you have, that might change your life into a happy journey.
Focus on your dream
When you are busy focusing on your goals and dreams, you will have fewer chances to see what others are doing and what they have and don’t have. Remember your goal, what you have been struggling with from the start, and what you want in the end. Love your journey, no matter what.
There will always be ups and downs, but remember that the more hurdles you have, the more beautiful the journey result will be. The more experience you will gain, the more lessons you will learn.
The more you mature with the journey, the more you know how to handle or deal with matters and people. Always try to do what you love to do and ignore the criticism you hear or see from others. People always have to say something against others, whether you are in a good position or wrong. So save your energy and work devotedly to your work. The important thing while working on your dreams is that all you need is the ability to ignore them. Ignorance is an excellent way to try to forget what bothers you from listening to and bothers you by looking at others.
Ignore what is stopping you and becoming a hurdle in your way to achieving your goals. Those hurdles can come from anywhere; they may be from you as well, from your habits; you can be making hurdles for yourself, too. Ignore what habits you have had and develop the habits that will encourage you and speed up your journey to your desired destination.
Find positivity in your surroundings, not negativity.
When you keep on looking for negativity in your life, you will find more negativity. However, if you try to search for good and positivity in bad situations as well, you will find positivity around you. It depends on how you think it is and what you believe in.
If someone has something extraordinary than yours, appreciate their achievement rather than thinking wrong about them and feeling low. No one is perfect, and deep inside, we all know this fact, but we do not want to accept it emotionally on the shallow node. We all are the same as imperfect humans, and we cannot be perfect; even if you call yourself so, it will not make you perfect.
Instead of this, learn to love yourself and realize what you have is pretty enough to have a healthy and beautiful life.
Someone says a beautiful line:
If you start looking at your imperfections differently, you can see that they make you different from others and who you are, so you are already perfect.
Let us first learn to love ourselves; only then can we fight our inner fears and transform our lower confidence into high confidence.
After leaving Wells Fargo Bank in 2014, Daniel began a career as a finance consultant, advising companies and individuals on economic policy, labor relations, and financial management.
At Promtfinance.com, Daniel writes about personal finance topics, value estimation, budgeting strategies, retirement planning, and portfolio diversification.
Read more on Daniel Smith's biography page.
Contact Daniel: daniel@promtfinance.com