"I wish I had her body, I'd love to be that skinny"
"Man, if I had his muscles, I'd be so much more attractive"
"Their car is so much better than mine"
"They live such a better lifestyle than I do".
Comparing ourselves to others seems to be something so minor in our lives that we may not notice the negative build up from it after time. We all know how toxic it can be for us, especially when we compare things like our appearance and our lifestyle. Along with these two things we shouldn't be comparing I think there is one more that may have a larger impact that we may not be realized, this would be comparing our own success to that of others.
We look at what others have achieved and sometimes think it somehow trumps our own success. It can be as simple as you being proud of yourself that you got a 90% on a test, but suddenly getting upset with yourself when you hear your friend got a 100% on the same test. Seconds ago you were immensely proud of yourself for getting an A on the exam, but then became upset because you deemed that A not good enough once you heard the grade your friend got.
I know for myself I should listen to my own advice when it came to my freshman year of college. I was in a class setting where the professor praised kids who got an internship over this current summer, like having the kid stand up in class and have everyone start clapping kind of praising. This really made me feel like I wasn't accomplishing what I was supposed to be during this stage of my life.
I had to stand back and look at the bigger picture, I was indeed comparing the success of my classmates to my own. Though they ended up with an internship opportunity, I accomplished so many little things over my first two semesters of college.
I got accustomed to living away from home, adapted to a college schedule, met many new friends, had an amazing GPA, joined a club, and declared a major after being undecided when I first came to school.
These are all successes to me, and I had always been proud of myself for all of these minor things, but I came at fault to comparing my little accomplishments to someone's major success. When you step back and look at it, you can realize how unhealthy it can be for yourself when you begin to do this.
What I can take from this, and advise others to do, is to acknowledge what you have achieved, no matter the scale of what it is, and be super proud of yourself. Also, if you are super proud of yourself, don't diminish how content you are with yourself because you think what someone else is accomplishing is "so much" better than what you are.
