"Comparison is the thief of joy," as they say, but it's not as simple as knowing that and being immediately freed from its clutches.
I looked up a former friend from high school today and found she's now super successful with her own startup doing cool science shit that might actually improve people's lives. When I look at my own life and what I've done in the same time it feels so insignificant, worthless even.
Normally I'm content to just chug along my path and try my best to better the world, but I've got some wounds surrounding this friend and our falling out (largely due to my own insecurities and inability to reconcile my unrequited crush on her :cringe: ) that never healed. Even thinking about her makes me feel so wretched, and all the more hateful towards myself for feeling that way, for being so weak and ill-accomplished. Is there anything to do but just try to block it out of my mind? I wish I could tear out and burn the piece of me that cares about this.
Edit: Thank you to everyone who's responded to this. Talking about it has helped me feel a lot better and think about some goals for how I want my life to go and what I want to prioritize moving forward. Who knew internet strangers could be so helpful?
I know what it feels like to have someone you crushed on go on to be more accomplished. It hurts a lot. It helps to remember that you're feelings are most likely making you idealize her situation and you're only seeing what she's posting in public. As someone who worked at a cool science startup for several years, they can be complete messes behind the scenes. I bring this up not to encourage you to tear this person down in your mind, but to remember that she's probably just plugging along and doing her best as well and that her days are also probably mundane and filled with bullshit same as yours. Your mind is busy constructing an ideal for you to identify with and then castigating you for not living up to it. You can mitigate that a little by pushing back and reminding yourself that she's having bad days and may sometimes feel inadequate as well. I recommend you stay off social media for a little while because otherwise you're just finding fuel for your imagination.
In the meantime, remind yourself that you're doing well if you're doing what you're capable of, not what someone else is. I've struggled with depression for pretty much all of my life and realized that it's prevented me from doing a lot of things that I would've done otherwise. But all the same I've built a life for myself. I've gotten out of bed, found ways to fill my day, do things that I can be more or less ethically satisfied with. Could I be doing better? Sure, and I'm going to keep trying to improve. But not being at that better place right now doesn't make me worthless, it makes me human. You're human too, and you deserve the admiration you're giving your friend.
I think this is the way forward, it's just hard because I've got such a bevy of emotions around her that makes it difficult to balance. Like logically I know I should wish the best for her because we were good friends and I cared about her, but I can't deny that there's a part of me that wants her to crash and burn to vindicate itself and "win".
Yeah, it's a fine line to walk. I think you'll find that even if she does crash and burn it won't make you feel any better and that wishing for it will simply stoke resentment. A lot of the process of moving on is accepting that there won't be any closure, and that the odds are she's not going to see either Earth-shattering success or failure but will end up in the middle somewhere. Keep your focus on the fact that you have options that you wouldn't have had if things had worked out like you'd planned or hoped. Not better options or worse ones, simply different and unanticipated ones.