CYNDY'S CORNER - CYNTHIA OBINWOGO
P.S : "When you stop looking at your individual journey as a competition with every human in your life, you can celebrate the successes of others sincerely and genuinely empathize with their hardship"
There seems to be a myth that success can be achieved with the perfect formula.
As if all we have to do is be marathon running, vegan entrepreneurs who are simultaneously concerned with the pursuit of profit and with social justice in order to win the game of life,
As if an arbitrary number of hours of sleep, glasses of water, and hugs a day will mean we’re doing things “right.”
There seems to be a “right” way to be a student, to be a professional, to be a partner, to be a parent, to be a friend, to be a human being.
Millions of articles, movies, and publications are dedicated to telling us the “right” way to do things...
It’s not just media, it’s people.
The thing is, my success will not be your success, because I am not you and you are not me.
When we all maintain the same arbitrary illusion of what “success” is supposed to be, or what being a successful parent, student, friend, and human being looks like....,
We risk sabotaging the possibility of achieving our own success,
Of recognizing and learning what success means to us.
How you measure happiness, how you measure well-being, may be completely different from how I do.
So maybe being a vegan, or being an entrepreneur, or being a dancer, or being a social justice advocate is what works for you,
Or maybe doing one thing at a time, dedicating yourself to a field of study or religion, whatever works.
But me, I need structure and predictability.
I need to study and be active and write, things which are optional for some but necessary for my own well-being.
I know if I get up at the same time every day, and go to bed at the same time, it does not matter how crazy the middle of my day is,
I am in control of my ship. I thrive when I am busy because I feel like I’m useful, like I have a purpose. I need goals and something to look forward to.
We’re all trying to figure things out. We all walk a hard road.
If I am constantly comparing myself to others, and measuring my success and failure by someone else’s standards, I will never be good enough. So as YOU!
We are ourselves, for better or for worse, and even on my absolute worst day, I am me.
The battle we face with ourselves, our own demons, our own challenges are hard enough,
Why should we make that infinitely more impossible competing against others?
Instead of asking other people what they’re doing, and what they’re working on, I want to ask them are you happy?
Are you healthy?
Are you treating people well? I think I’ll be okay in life so long as I can answer those three questions with “yes.”
When you stop looking at your individual journey as a competition with every human in your life, you can celebrate the successes of others sincerely and genuinely empathize with their hardship,
Regardless of whether we feel the same,
Regardless of what position we are in, regardless of our current state.
I have been trying so hard in the last year to avoid the toxicity and self-sabotaging nature of unnecessary and incessant comparison, and I still struggle with it.
There is someone smarter than me. Someone more intelligent than me. Someone better looking than me...,
But they are not me, and I’m okay with that