COMPETING WITH OTHERS

   

You left school, three years ago. Your mates are already serving and working, you look at them and you feel like a failure. You are working but you ran into a friend last week, she has a sweet ride, married, her husband is rich and she’s working in a great firm. You look at your life and decide it is rubbish. She’s leading a better life than you are. Your mates are all married and you are not, you look at them with envy and wonder why your life is cursed. You ask yourself what you did wrong, why can’t you be like them.

  Tonye was your junior in school but now he owns his own firm. He’s a big boy, a confirmed one. He has a house and cars, not rented. You walk into your one room and cry. Why is he successful while you are not? What have you done wrong?

  Every day we look at people and wonder why we don’t have what they have. We tell ourselves their lives are better than ours. We see the clothes, shoes, bags, houses, cars; spouses and we comment to ourselves that our lives are not worth it. We ask God, why does Stella have this and we don’t. That little envy appears each time we see their updates on Blackberry, Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. Sometimes we even add, ‘I’m better than Tony.’ ‘I deserve all this and not her.’

  When we plan, we add ‘I’ll make it more than Tony has already.’ ‘My husband will be better and richer than Funmi’s.’

  Do you know you are in competition with no one but yourself? They are not competing with you. That Tony, Funmi, and Stella you are looking at and basing your life and your success with theirs are not you. You’re not them either. You have had different backgrounds, roads, opportunities, your dreams, desires are all totally different. You may have met Funmi’s husband and you wouldn’t want him because what you want in a man is different from what she wants.  Wherever they are now, you didn’t follow the same path they did. Maybe their family got them the job or they had a nest egg somewhere to start up or their field is in acting while yours is in banking. You are not same with anyone on this planet so why measure your success with theirs?

  Look at your dreams which you alone have and mark your progression and success. Yes, you might both be in banking together and he’s been promoted but you haven’t. He made different choices as they appeared before him. You might even be working in different banking firms or same but in different locales and with different bosses. Why worry your head over another man? Work on yourself and your dreams. You set your score mark for yourself. If you are in A now tell yourself you want to move and work towards getting to B next time. If your friend gets to C, remember you are not in his shoes and you don’t have same thought processes, opportunities and choices and keep moving on with your goals. Accept your life and the choices you’ve made, if you want more make it happen and not condemning your life by calling others better.

  Set your goals higher and move from where you are because you want to. Beat the score mark you had the last time. You are not in competition with me, him, her, them, and us but with you. Beat yourself! I know it's that time of the year when we evaluate achievements and milestones done in the year.

Thank you for reading! Hope my thought helps you somehow as it did me.

 Happy New Year in advance and good luck with your resolutions and plans. Cheers!