I doubt there’s many people who’ve not had the comparison bug. We can’t help but look at other people and benchmark ourselves against them. Sometimes, this can inspire us to grow and achieve more. But personally, it also makes me feel unhappy and insecure.

Somewhere along the way I learned that if someone is better than me, it automatically means I’m not good enough. This belief rarely bodes well because there will always be someone smarter than me, prettier than me, fitter, funnier and more popular than me. There are many people who are more confident, successful, happier and more experienced than I am.

Thanks to social media, proof of this is readily available. I can see details of people’s relationships, social life, beauty, status, finances, popularity, material gains, fashion, fitness, career etc. Thanks to the internet, I can delve into people’s lives who I don’t even know.

On one hand this is amazing. On the other hand, a casual scroll down my Facebook feed will at some point trigger the comparison bug. No doubt, I will be left feeling like a failure.
But, taking a deeper look at this, I realised something. Yes, other people have certain things, but…

They are not me

Not a single human in existence was or ever will be, exactly the same as me.

It’s impossible for anyone to be the same as me because the events that led to my creation are unrepeatable. I come from a very long ancestral lineage ending with two very specific people out of 107 billion who have ever lived, giving birth to me.

The material that made me was held in just one in a million egg cells and one in 500 billion sperm cells. The odds were stacked against my creation. Yet, here I am.

The same goes for you. Dr Ali Binazir calculates that the chance of you existing is 1 in 10 to the power of 2,685,000. To simplify, the chance of you existing is zero. It’s a miracle that you’re here. Never to be repeated or replicated, you are a one off. You are a limited edition.

So can you really be compared to someone else?

There’s even more that makes you incomparable

The above is just about getting you here. What about everything that came after that?

Your life experiences, your thoughts and feelings. Your challenges, your dreams, your fears. The conversations and relationships you’ve had, the lives you’ve touched, the children you’ve bought into the world. Your skills, talents, voice and contributions – the list is endless.

No human in existence can replicate that exact same experience. Your life is mind bogglingly unique. It’s simply beyond compare.

You are you and that is your power

You may have guessed that I’m writing this as much for myself as I am for you. They say we teach others what we most need to learn ourselves. So I’m with you on this journey, this journey of learning to appreciate myself and not compare myself unfavourably – or even favourably – to others.

We can celebrate others for they too are unique, but don’t let that fool you into forgetting your own gifts. There’s an expression and an imprint on existence that only you can make.

So next time you find yourself comparing yourself to someone who appears to do, be or have more than you, just remember that you are one in 107 billion. There’ll never be another like you.

So instead of looking at Facebook and falling in love with other people, I invite you to look in the mirror and fall in love with yourself.

About the author: To find out more about Pinky Jangra, click here.

 

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