"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?
All my friends are way more successful than me in their lives. Yet they still come to me for advice about shit because I'm good at putting ideas into words and I read a lot. If I can't give them advice they know I am a nonjudgemental listener who will be patient and empathetic. There's other ways to be valuable. If you improve yourself a little each day other people will notice it. Especially if they go a long time without seeing you. Keep working on yourself.
You have one life: don't think you aren't valuable because of somebody else's standards.
You only have the time you have left and nobody knows how long that is. Nobody knows how close the second hand is to midnight in any of our lives. Agonizing over comparing yourself to others is wasted time and time is something you can't get back. I know I can't help it sometimes, I still do this, I look at my friends with kids or marriages and my increasingly old ass and it stings a bit. But you know what? I'm also in better shape now, mentally and physically, than I was in my mid 20s. When we were all peers back in those days I was also secretly miserable every damn day. Getting out of bed was a chore. I drank too damn much. It wasn't working for me back then either. Time flies. Things change. Everyone admits things change. Nobody denies that things change. So you know what that means? You can change.
Also: It'll be alright, okay? It does get better. Either you slowly learn to forget these people or you better yourself and you forget them anyway because you're onto newer things. Maybe right now it doesn't feel like things are getting better. That's fine actually. Your job right now is to stop them from getting worse. You can do this.
Look at you, being inspiring and almost making me cry over here. I really hope it will get better and that I can find a way to be proud of myself.