Comparing Yourself

It’s been a couple days since I last posted because, simply, I felt like I didn’t have much to say. I’ve been having a severe lack of inspiration but I also got very busy so didn’t even have time to brainstorm. However, I like to write about what I’m thinking and feeling and today I got hit with inspiration.

From the title of this post, I’m sure you can guess what I want to talk about.

In this day and age, it’s hard not to compare yourself to others. You find yourself asking yourself questions such as “should I be earning that by now?” “Should I have bought a house?” “Do I need to be settled down by now?”. In your twenties, especially, people are at such different stages. Some are having kids, buying houses, getting married while you’re just trying to remember if you brushed your teeth this morning.

As I approach my 25th birthday, I find this noise in my head getting louder and louder as the paths of my friends seem to drift further and further from my own. Until this point in my life, my friends lives have always mirrored my own. School, sixth form, University and then now… where our lives have split off from a singular path.

I find that this pressure has come from within. I set myself impossible standards and knock myself down because I don’t deem myself as ‘successful’ as others my age because I haven’t hit the same milestones.

I think the world of social media also makes this harder for people my age. You see the ‘highlight reel’ of their life where they show their smiling children and pristine houses but you’ll never hear about the tantrums or see the state of their house 99% of the time. But you still sit and wonder why their lives look much better than your own

I’m not sure what the answer is to stop comparing yourself to others, apart from constantly reminding myself that we are all on our own path and going at our own pace.

I read something somewhere that plants blossom at different rates but it doesn’t make them any less beautiful.

Heather leaving the hollow