It's often hard to look around at other people my age, especially my own friends, and see them accomplishing amazing things as I sit here feeling as though I've accomplished nothing. That's not to say I'm not incredibly proud of them and happy for them, because I am; I have been fortunate enough to surround myself with a lot of pretty incredible people that are doing and someday will do astonishing things. Each and every one of them have worked especially hard and completely deserve every great opportunity that is provided to them. They also inspire and help me along the way to accomplish my own astounding things.

All too often though, we start comparing and analyzing. Why haven't I started looking for an internship? Why don’t I have a boyfriend when so many people my age are already getting married? Why haven't I finished school yet? The list of questions and comparisons goes on forever and once we trap ourselves in it, it becomes increasingly difficult to remember all of the amazing things we are doing ourselves or will do in the future.

Why though? Why do we allow the success of the people we love make us feel so unsuccessful and insignificant when in reality it does nothing to take away from ourselves and our accomplishments?

I believe the answer is that we somehow believe that there is a specific order or set way of doing things and to stray off that path in any way means failure in itself. Although I sometimes find myself trapped in that same mindset, I can’t help but laugh and ask where this magical playbook is and then I wonder why anyone would ever want to follow the same exact same playbook that everyone else is following anyway.

Imagine a football game in which each team has the same playbook and runs the exact same plays. There’s no pump fakes, no faking the punt to throw a hail mary down the field for a touchdown, and, worst of all, no Michigan “Train Formation”. Although there may be a lot of talent on the field, that talent would be stuck living in a communist state in which it could not reach its full potential as it is held back by the “great playbook of football” and not given the room to grow beyond what is held within that playbook designed for everyone of all different talents and skills.

That is exactly what life would be like if we all believed there was one single playbook to follow of when and how things need to happen in our lives. No two people are the same and their different talents and skills could not possibly be confined to performing like one another. That is, in my opinion, one of the most amazing things about life.

Think about it for a moment, God created you to be exactly like nobody else in this world. Over 7 billion people are currently roaming this planet and billions more have done so before them, yet no two have ever had symmetrical lives. Each and every beating heart has experienced different traumas, different emotions, different number of beats, and even different rhythms. So if God created us all to be different at the very core of what makes us alive, why would he wants us to live any two lives the exact same way? Why if he has a master plan he wants us all to follow in life, has he not given it to us?

There is no master plan and that is exactly as God intended for it to be so let's embrace and celebrate that.

Let's stop trying to conform to society's standards for us, there is no one ideal way to live and the fact that society tries to tell us otherwise is ultimately a demise of our own making.

Let's stop trying to compare ourselves to one another once and for all. The only thing that does is distract us from being happy and proud for the people we love along with working towards our own goals and ambitions.

Let's celebrate the differences we all have from one another in every way. The very fact that we are all our own people with the freedom to think and act differently from one another is awesome! Let's not lose sight of that.