An old friend of mine posted some words of wisdom on his Facebook page today that resonated with me. His post started off with these words “Ignore the comparisons and expectations knocking at your door. The only person that you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday. Prove yourself to yourself, not others.” It went on to say more but I stopped there because it dawned on me that while I have gotten out of the practice of trying to impress and prove something to other people around me, I haven’t quite managed to prove the things to myself that I need to. I haven’t quite lived up to my own expectations, both of others and myself.
I have a huge amount of goals for a huge, damn near impossible dream that I have had since I was younger, and where I am now at this exact point in time is not where I imagined I would be right now. My own expectations have not been met and the terrible realization is that I only have myself to blame for that. I have something to prove to myself about my real intentions towards my dreams and about my true ability to be able to get what I need to get done to accomplish those goals.
I make comparisons all the time (subconsciously) about how far someone else has come and about the life some others around me may have. It’s not that I want their life per say, but rather that I see that they are where they want to be in their life and I am not quite there yet. But there’s this quote that reminds me that I can’t drive myself crazy with where someone else stands in their life. It says “don’t compare your chapter 1 to someone else’s chapter 20” and I am guilty of doing that a lot. I take someone else who is in their home stretch of their journey and compare it to me being in the middle of mine.
I have to keep in mind that I’m just in the middle of my journey and I haven’t even begun to realize the blessings that are going to come my way. When that frustration starts to set in and I look around at everyone’s seemingly perfect circumstances I have to be reminded that I don’t know what is going on behind their side of the fence. Their grass might not be as green on their side as it appears and as long as I continue to water my side of the fence my grass has the potential to be just as green, if not brighter.
So I’m going to stop looking over on other people’s paths and stay focused on mine. I can’t afford to be forced into a detour because I simply wasn’t focused on where I was going. I’m going to work hard on staying in my lane and looking straight ahead. What’s for me is on my side of the fence, not over in someone else’s yard.
Jimmetta Carpenter
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