Apples To Oranges

I know that social media these days has really upped the comparison game amongst people, especially young people.  Everywhere you see on Facebook or Instagram is the latest influencer living his or her best life – traveling to remote places, starting a wonderfully perfect family, earning lots of money.  It can be hard to find satisfaction in life when you’re looking at everyone’s highlight reels and comparing it to your mundane life of getting a cup of latte on a Monday.

But it’s important to realize that everyone is playing a different game in life.  And you can’t really just envy what a person has, you have to envy what it took for them to get whatever it is that they have.  And often times, the process requires a lot of sacrifice, a lot of meandering, a lot of things that you don’t necessarily wish for nor desire.

Because everyone has problems as well and nobody’s life is the perfect movie that they display on Instagram and TikTok.  Everyone has warts and skeletons in the closet, me included. 

There are billions of people in this world and chances are, there will be a few people out there that have the same problems and worries as yourself.  Nobody has it perfect in life – and I’m sure there are many stressors out there that people are facing – whether that be financial, emotional, career, or what not.

So often times, when you’re comparing your own well-being to that of someone else, it’s not an apples to apples comparison.  More often than not, you are comparison apples to oranges or tomatoes or grapes or cucumbers or whatever vegetable or fruit that you’d like to name.  It’s just unsustainable to compare success because everyone has such a different life and lives by such different standards.

Would you like to compare your success by wealth?  Or by your health?  Or by the number of friends that you have?  Or by some form of internal benchmark that is impossible to valuate – like peace of mind?  It’s such different metrics that it’s impossible to benchmark.

When I was in high school, I was not necessarily the most perfect individual, and I was still figuring it out in life.  Back then, I’d get good grades in school and most of my identity was tied towards my grades, so sometimes I’d look at other students who would not be as good as in school as I was with a sense of inferiority.  I was comparing apples to supposed apples, assuming that they measure their sense of self-worth the same way that I measure mine.

Of course, that is not possible, and everyone is playing a different game in life.  I think it’s important to note that life is not all black and white, and more often times different shades of grey.

Unless you’re playing an actual game where each player or team agrees on a set of rules to determine a clear winner and a clear loser – like say NBA basketball or even your local spelling bee – there is no winner and there is no loser.  All there is is perspective.  And perspective is quite frankly in the eye of beholder.

I think there’s a sense of optimism in this realization – as we can all benchmark ourselves to different standards so that we don’t hold ourselves too firmly towards one benchmark.  There’s significant risk to that.  When I was in college, I would struggle mightily in the engineering school at Cornell University, where I was surrounded by so many college geniuses.  It affected my worth because my identity and version of success was tied down to how well I did in school.

So, when I was doing well in the pre-college years (like in high school and in junior high), I would be flying high and feeling like on cloud nine and dare I say even a bit superior.  But of course, once the fun and games hit me in the face, I would feel a sense of inferiority – the other side of the coin – when I was below the curve in my academics at Cornell.

So, it’s not sustainable to compare yourself apples to apples in this game called life.  Life is so holistic and so unpredictable and so flexible that everyone is writing in their own rules in their minds.  And that’s the benefit of it all where we can find positive sum games and win-win solutions together in order to build a more beneficial society.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure – though I’m not sure if that’s the best metaphor for it all.  But in general, everyone views success in a different lens and thus your worth should simply be tied to values rather than tangible things like whether you get an A in school. 

Next time you see someone on Instagram completely balling out and living his best life on a yacht in Croatia, think about what it took for them to get there.  Also think about the many flaws that he might have behind the scenes that he might not be showing the world.  Think whether you truly want that type of life for yourself. 

But in the end, just practice some gratitude for what you have and make sure that the only person that you’re comparing yourself to is your own internal self and your own values.  And who am I to tell you what values you should live by anyhow.