We tend to blame our frustration on external factors. And in fact, in a way, it is others that make us nervous, angry and sad. And with this summary we could end this article but let’s break it down a bit more.
Actually, the matter is more complicated than that. It is true that it is others who make us feel bad, but this is only possible if we allow it.
Obsessive comparison on social networks
In the age of social networks, it is possible to observe the lives of millions of other people on the screen of a cell phone and it has become very easy to fall into the temptation to compare: am I better or is he/she better? What am I missing to be so happy? Why can’t I be the one to live that perfect life?
For many, this means ending up in a maelstrom of envy and low self-esteem. If it used to be your neighbor who frustrated you with his new car, and this could annoy you to a certain extent, nowadays even a complete stranger living on the other side of the world can arouse some kind of discomfort.
Everyone on social media seems to be more beautiful, more intelligent, more popular than you. Everyone seems to have more money, more success, more friends than you. And you, almost without realizing it, consider yourself more and more inferior, not to say useless. This seemingly harmless habit opens the door to anxiety and depression.
Why it is essential to stop comparing yourself with others
Obsessively comparing yourself to others is a behavior that already existed before social networks, and that even today goes far beyond the screen of a cell phone. It doesn’t really matter in what context this comparison takes place, the point is that every time it happens, you risk coming away with broken bones.
Think about it: you get stressed at work when you become obsessed with outperforming your peers. You become envious and insecure when you focus only on the projects and dreams that others are achieving. When you spend your day checking that others are behaving the way you want them to, you become nervous and angry.
We tend to believe that being serene is a matter of genetics or context, and therefore luck or misfortune, but in reality it is much simpler than that: if you are full of negative feelings, you are ruining your own life.
And if you don’t want to intoxicate your mind, there is a very good starting point: stop comparing yourself obsessively with others.
The mind must be controlled
The mind only focuses on those it considers better. And for some years I could feel it in my own body because I compared myself with everyone else.
It is no accident that during those years I was very unhappy and had a very poor opinion of myself: focused as I was on the progress of others, I felt terribly behind.
Instead of focusing on my situation and how to try to get out of it, I chose the easy way out: comparing myself to others. And no, it’s not the right way because you get into a deeper and deeper spiral that is difficult to get out of.
I just thought that maybe I would find someone worse than me. But the human mind doesn’t work like that, it only focuses on who it thinks is better: who has more, who has what we don’t have.
If you’re full of negative feelings, you’re ruining your own life.
And so I discovered that many had two university degrees, several prestigious masters, a qualified job, clear ideas about the future and a thousand other stories. And I had none of that. If you are in the same situation, you have to find the strength to take back the reins of your life and get out of that spiral that drags you to the bottom with a feeling of absolute failure.
Each one of us is unique and it is precisely this aspect that makes us wonderful. The fear of being judged leads us to conform and lose our identity, and it is then that we begin to slowly die, to disappear and stop recognizing ourselves. There is nothing wrong with any of us. There is no war to fight, except those invented by our mind. There is no point in wearing armor to hide who we really are from others.
