I need to stop comparing myself to others. · 6:19am May 24th, 2016

Far too often I find myself very invigorated, and then I look at someone else's work. It get this twinge of gut wrench that slowly consumes me until I just lose all my motivation. It's an awful feeling and even though I'm aware of it—even though I know what's happening and why it's happening—I can't overcome it.

It's not when I see a lecture by Bill Gates or something; the level of prosperity he has achieved is momentous an it's not something I deeply believe is realistic for me to want. No, it's when I compare myself to, say, others on this site. I know that my writing is not great by any standards, but it feels like if I had done the most minute thing differently that I would have been able to achieve something more. It is, of course, utterly silly. Honestly, your notoriety on this site doesn't really matter beyond just this site. I'm sure it's made the talking point of an interesting conversation one time or another, but it has, for all intensive purposes, no real value aside from maybe a good feeling.

And even if it does have some meaningfulness that I'm overlooking, that doesn't mean that it's healthy to be comparing myself constantly and seeking validation of something; I'm really not sure what it is exactly that I'm even comparing (it's probably cumulative).

I always compare myself to those in my immediate proximity, because it seems more achievable if there is some sort of tangible success. But the thing is: that success isn't always tangible. And so this begins the sessions of self loathing and lack-motivation that stops any work from being done. And I guess as I'm writing this I found the source of my inability to finish things. Huh.

I find it so strange that even with my acute self-awareness, I still cannot manage to stop doing this. I can't stop comparing myself to others and I can't manage to just do things for fun. Like, if I don't achieve at something on my first go, I just stop doing it completely because I trick myself into thinking it's futile—even if I found it fun in the moment1

So, I guess I'm starting a new-summer's resolution to stop comparing myself to others and trying to emulate their success. I'm just going to do things that I enjoy solely because I enjoy them, and I'm not going to worry about arbitrary quantifiers and after-statistics.

Thank you, 8 readers, for reading.