Lately, I’ve been thinking about how often we are told to improve ourselves.
Learn something new.
Find a good job.
Be more productive.
Exercise.
Read books.
Wake up early.
Earn more money.
Build a career.
Work on your personality.
And the list just never ends. 😅
There is no doubt that the desire to improve oneself is a good thing. Learning new things, moving forward, and bettering oneself is essential, too. But sometimes, I feel we take it a bit too seriously.
We focus so much on the person we want to become that we forget to appreciate the person we are right now. I feel that one problem with constantly trying to improve ourselves is that, over time, we begin to feel we are never quite enough. We achieve something, and instead of enjoying it, we immediately start thinking about the next thing. We learn a skill, only to start thinking about the five other skills we haven't mastered yet.
One goal is accomplished, and immediately, another one appears. And somewhere along the way, we keep telling ourselves: "I should be doing even better." But what if, sometimes, we didn't have to think that way?What if we could simply tell ourselves:
"I'm doing okay." Not perfect. Not quite where I want to be yet. But still... I'm okay. We compare ourselves far too much. Comparison only amplifies this feeling. We see someone land a great job, start a business, travel the world, get married, buy a home, or achieve success at a young age. And then, we look at our own lives and think:
"What am I doing?" Yet, we often compare our entire lives to the best moments of someone else's life. We don't know how much they struggled before reaching that point. We don't know what is happening in their personal lives. And most importantly—their timeline is not our timeline. Still, remembering this isn't always easy. I now feel that self-improvement shouldn't always stem from the belief that there is something wrong with us. Sometimes, we want to learn a skill because we are genuinely interested in it. Sometimes, we want to exercise because we want to feel healthy. Sometimes, we want a better job because we have specific goals.
This is a healthy form of improvement.
However, there is another kind of improvement where we keep changing ourselves simply because we dislike our current version. And I don't think living this way is very peaceful. We can work on ourselves without constantly feeling disappointed in ourselves. We can set goals without viewing our current life as worthless. We can desire more from life while still being grateful for what we already have.
There are times when I make plans to be productive, but then—somehow—I end up spending ages just scrolling through my phone. 😅
And honestly, this is something my friend and I talk about quite often whenever we go out together. We might be having a completely normal day, going somewhere, eating something, or just walking around, and somehow the conversation always reaches the same place:
"You know, she got married."
"He got such a good job."
"She is doing really well now."
"Look at them, their life seems so sorted."
And then, without even realizing it, we start talking about our own lives.
"What are we doing?"
"Are we actually moving forward?"
"Should we be doing more?"
It's funny how easily these conversations happen. 😅 I don't think we are jealous of those people. At least, that's not how I see it. I think sometimes we are simply looking at other people's lives and using them to measure our own progress. But the truth is, everyone's life is moving at a different pace.
Someone might get married at 25.
Someone might find their dream job at 22.
Someone might start their business at 30.
And someone else might still be figuring everything out at 30.
None of these timelines are wrong.
Maybe we don't always need to ask ourselves, "Why am I not there yet?"
Maybe sometimes we should ask,
"Am I happy with where I am right now?"
And if the answer is no, then we can work towards changing it.
But if the answer is yes, maybe we don't need to feel guilty just because someone else is ahead of us in a different part of life. So I'm curious—do you also have these kinds of conversations with your friends? 😅
Do you ever find yourself comparing your life with someone else's and wondering if you are doing enough?
I'd love to know what you think. ❤️
Desclaimer - Images are AI Generated and Translated using Google
