Talk Time | Stop Comparing Yourself

I, for one, am not the only person in the blogging world who happens to compare herself to pretty much 95% of the blogging community: It goes without saying that we all compare ourselves to someone or something in one way or another. We scroll through Tumblr and Instagram admiring the lives of celebrities and bloggers who appear to have the most perfect lives, sunning it up on golden beaches in Thailand, strutting down the streets of London with their Givenchy handbags in a pair of Valentinos, and looking as glamorous as ever, what appears to be, 24/7. Even on a daily basis, we compare our grades to others, and our work ethic to other colleagues.


Whilst using this admiration as motivation to better yourself can be helpful, this can so easily cross over into jealous territory. Jealousy is always destructive and can end up leaving you feeling disappointed about what you could and should be doing. We end up hating and being angry at ourselves for not living up to these expectations, no matter how unattainable they may be. In the end, we feel worse about ourselves. Your biggest judge is you. Whilst society creates unrealistic expectations that we feel we have to live up to in order to feel accepted, we judge ourselves as individuals by believing that we are not good enough.

The world of social media doesn't help this issue. With sites such as Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr, it's so easy to find yourself lusting over the clothes that girl pulls off, wishing you could have a body like that model, or wanting perfect brows and lips like that blogger. We easily make a mental note of everything we aspire to be just from looking at other peoples pictures and posts, without thinking about what goes on behind closed doors. We assume that the people behind these perfected images are just as perfect when in fact, behind every photographed outfit and beautifully set-up composition is stress, hard-work, frustration, and more than likely a little bit of anxiety about the way it looks and how it is depicted by others.

I'll leave this with you.
Stop focusing on the lives of other people. Motivate yourself, yes. But don't compare the way these people look and act to the way you look and act. Celebrate your great qualities instead of pointing out all your flaws and focusing on the qualities of other people because, no matter how cliché it sounds, you are who you are: Comparing yourself to someone or something else is not going to change that. We all have things about ourselves that we dislike or may want to change. But by spending so much time picking out our flaws, we dismiss all the great aspects of ourselves that make us who we are.
It's about time we celebrate ourselves and our qualities, rather than put them down.