It’s always been there.
When I was younger, my parents would say, be more like him. You know, that one friend who seemed to do everything right: grades, manners, the whole package. At school, teachers said the same thing. Study harder. Follow their example.
Then work happened… and it didn’t change much. There was always someone being held up as “the standard.†If you weren’t there yet, you were told to do better.
I remember, in school, I really wanted a cycle. In my head, the narrative was simple if I got that cycle, I was sorted. I’d be the only one with it. And then I got it… and immediately, my eyes shifted. I stopped comparing myself with the friends who didn’t have a cycle and started looking at the ones who had a better one. And now I wanted better.
It doesn’t change as you grow up. The cycle just gets replaced, with a car, a house, a holiday, more followers… the list goes on.
Somewhere along the way, we’ve been wired to look sideways. To measure our lives against someone else’s. And with social media, it’s like the volume’s turned all the way up everyone’s best moments playing on loop.
And so you start moving your own goalposts. I’ll be happy when… When I get the new house. The new car. The promotion. When my business hits that milestone.
Dan Ariely, in Predictably Irrational, talks about how irrational forces like comparison, end up steering so many of our decisions. We don’t just notice what other people have. We start using it to decide what will make us happy. And it’s a race you never win.
Because the truth is, we’re not even running the same race. We don’t have the same starting lines. Or the same paces. And that’s fine.
Maybe the real win is to stop checking someone else’s scoreboard. To notice where you are. And to give your own path the credit it deserves.
Life’s too short to live in someone else’s shadow.
Book Recommendation: Predictably Irrational If you’ve ever caught yourself making a choice that made no sense later, you’ll enjoy this one. It’s smart, funny, and makes you realise just how much of what we do is driven by things we don’t even notice like the comparison trap.