Success

I've been thinking a lot about success recently, as is likely to happen when one moves back in with their parents at 27.

Ever since I was little I've had the habit of comparing myself to other people. Gauging my success or perceived lack there of in relation to others. This is a bit of a slippery slope when one has the talented, yes, successful, driven and hard working friends that I have. And I am so thankful for the people I do have in my life. I realize I'm lucky to be in a position to have a home to return to, to have people to live with. It's difficult to think of these things without feeling like I'm being a brat and not being gracious about the things I DO have.

I find myself in a funk, not having things go the way I thought they would of, expected them to, or wished they would of. I look at other people's lives around me and wonder, why can't I have what they have?

Yet, I have to remind myself that they have their own struggles, they may have started in a different place than I did, may have wanted different things than I did, and maybe even, feel like their life is different than they expected or wanted.

I was talking with a friend the other day who was struggling with some of the same issues of comparing themsleves to others and she said something along the lines of, "yeah, it's a baby step, and maybe not as great or good or wonderful as what that other person over there is doing, but it's MY baby step god dammit"

and that's stayed with me. Floating around inside me.

It's mine. 

and that's what matters. That's what counts. It doesn't matter how it looks compared to someone else, or to someone else. It's mine and I need to own it.

No one else is going to decide what my life should be, or make it what I want it to be. I'm looking outside for the answers I need to be looking inside for.

So, here is another resoultion for 2013.

Look in, not out.

Try to stop comparing myself to others. Because it doesn't do me any good, it doesn't do them any good. It keeps me from truly being happy for my friends and those around me, because I'm focusing on myself, and that's a shitty feeling. It's wrapping my stuff up into their stuff, and that doesn't need to happen. It's scattering my sense of self, looking at others lives when I have a perfectly good life here in front of me.

in, not out.