Day 25
Today has been fun and semi-productive. I edited some of my podcast and went through old Facebook messages and emails to make a note of all my up coming gigs. Since I dropped my phone in the toilet I no longer have access to my gig diary. I mentioned briefly in my last blog about how we compare ourselves to other people and I’ve been thinking more about that today. It’s something that’s very hard not to do in all aspects of life.
We go through our lives meeting so many different people and it’s human nature to be drawn to success. To remember it, to crave it, success feels good. When we meet people who we decide are more successful than us we naturally start drawing comparisons with our own lives. Mozart wrote his first symphony at the age of 8, but you’re not going to tell that to every 8 year old trying to learn the piano are you. As I’ve mentioned before I do stand-up comedy and I’ve seen people get success ahead of me, people who’ve been performing for the same amount of time that I have (or even less time) achieving more paid gigs or even T.V work and I could easily sit and compare my life to theirs. But that would be a very black and white way of looking at life. When we compare ourselves to others we’re stripping ourselves of our uniqueness. We’re diminishing ourselves to a series of boxes that can be ticked off. I’m the same age as them,we grew up in the same area, we both studied the same things but people are more complex than boxes. We all have different personalities and difference experiences, we all view the world differently and we should see that as a wonderful thing.
You shouldn’t compare yourself to anyone else because the only way you could have what they have is if you were them. And you shouldn’t want to be anybody else. We all have unique qualities that no one else possesses and life is about embracing and showing those unique qualities to people. We shouldn’t be burdened by looming shadows of other peoples lives lingering over our own but instead let our own light shine. I’m pretty sure I starting going into a speech from Coach Carter then but my point remains. Comparing yourself to anyone in any way is completely pointless. It can devalue your own life and achievements, no matter how small. It becomes much easier to feel depressed when you’re not focusing on the good things about yourself and instead focusing on the good things about others, or at least, what you see as the good things. Most likely the people you’re focusing on are just doing the same to someone else. We need to start concentrating on ourselves now.
Thanks for reading and I’ll speak to you tomorrow
Jake
Jake Pickford 