As I scroll through social media, my timeline immediately becomes a flood of life events, milestones, adventures and friendships. Prior to college, most everyone has the same monumental events around the same time. As a child, you begin to lose teeth around the same age as your classmates, have a similar structure of education and move up grades, apply for college and graduate at the same time as everyone around you.
Those moments of life go by with minimal comparison, because we are all on the same track. There were always a few leaders of the pack who wore makeup first, had boyfriends and girlfriends before everyone else and started emerging from “baby clothes” far before their mothers’ felt it was time, I’m sure. However, once you leave high school, life becomes less structured. The path for the majority of people splits, and you find yourself going on your very own road.
I love this part of adulthood. We are on our own path, doing exactly what we have set out to do and learning about things that aren’t catered to the majority. The world becomes so much less cookie cutter, black and white and predictable. But, it is easy to compare seasons with other people your age.
As I scroll through social media, engagement pictures flood my newsfeed. For someone who is not in that season of life, it is easy to criticize their decision to wed. Before you know it, words like “they are too young,” and “how could they be happy,” fill your thoughts. Insecurities creep in, and you begin to doubt your path. It takes less effort to criticize other people’s lives than to analyze your own, being happy with your season.
Next on my newsfeed are the dozen pictures of babies. It is fun to imagine having a family of your own one day, but just as the engagement pictures, comments and judgment can take the place of oohing and ahhing.
Flip the scenarios, and it is just as easy to envy the people who are single, not parents, traveling or beginning a career.
There are four seasons and a multitude of days in between. Suzy Kassem put it nicely when she said, "Every flower blooms at a different pace." Instead of scrutinizing other people’s places in life, enjoy where you are. Putting down their decisions will not justify or glorify your own. This comparison of where other people are in their lives is a natural phenomenon, and while we are just beginning to notice it, it will be present for the rest of our lives.
Life didn’t come with a one-fits-all instruction manual.
“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
Find satisfaction with your season, no matter if it is full of spring blooms or winter bareness.
