How many times have you been told not to compare yourself to others? Give or take about a million and two times? I’m just guesstimating here.

It’s harder than ever to avoid comparing our lives when they’re more on display than ever before.

But, here’s one of the best reasons I’ve found to try and pump the brakes on those thoughts:

You don’t know what other people are going through.

For real.

Unless this is a close, personal friend of yours that’s in the business of sharing deep secrets and some real talk with you, it’s fair to say that you don’t know the half of what another person is going through.

What does “going through” mean? It can mean life events, money struggles, and relationship turmoil. Or, more importantly, it can exist on the internal plane. Self-doubt, depression, past demons, grieving, anger, and personal dissatisfaction.

You never know.

Forget the Instagram feeds. Forget the pleasantries and corporate jargon that you see during the day to day.

It’s unwise to assume that all of that is real.

Why waste time comparing yourself to something that may not be a reality?

Their journey is their journey – and your journey is yours.

You’ve heard that old saying, “Never meet your heroes”. It’s rooted in the fact that 93.8% of the time, people will not be what we thought they were going to be. Whether they’re better or worse almost doesn’t matter sometimes. The fact is simply that they’ll be different than the idealized version we created in our minds. And that’s OK.

Because everyone is just another person. Even the great ones.

Still people.

You can look to others to create the vision of what you want your life to be, but take comfort in knowing that no other journey has been a perfect one and you’re looking at it with a whole lotta missing details.

Guess what details you do have? Yours.

You know who you were yesterday and who you want to be today and tomorrow. You know your mind, your thoughts, your weaknesses, your deepest insecurities, and your burning desires.

Besides, why would you waste time wishing you had someone else’s life when you’re sitting in one of your very own?