Don’t Let Comparison Spoil The Celebration

We see other people winning and we feel the need to compare. Why do they have better jobs? Better relationships? Better bodies? Better skin? Better lives? We look at their win and we think that somehow it invalidates our win, when really it doesn't.

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silhouette of three woman with hands on the air while dancing during sunset
Photo by Levi Guzman on Unsplash

I think we’ve all had a lot of wins in our lives—some are big, some are small, some we work hard for, some that were just handed to us. But regardless, they were all good. They were all beautiful. They were all wins.

But no matter how much it deserved to be celebrated, whether out loud on social media or within the quiet walls of our rooms, the sad truth is, most of these wins are wins we just forget.

Wins that we hide under the rug. Wins that we feel bad about. Wins that we think are not good enough. Wins that we don’t really acknowledge. Wins that we don’t appreciate. Because instead of celebrating them, we compare them.

We see other people winning and we feel the need to compare. Why do they have better jobs? Better relationships? Better bodies? Better skin? Better lives? We look at their win and we think that somehow it invalidates our win, when really it doesn’t.

We can all win all at the same time.

And maybe it’s about time we start celebrating their wins alongside our wins.

Congratulate them for getting that job—you don’t know how long they’ve been praying and hoping for that offer to happen.

Tell them they look good today—you don’t know how hard they’ve been working on their body every single day they get the chance.

Compliment their glowing selfie—you don’t know the struggle beneath that skin, the insecurity they had to overcome just to post that single photo.

And most of all, root for them genuinely. Whatever fight they’re in, whatever dream they have, whatever thing they are trying to achieve, support them, stand alongside them, and tell them they’re doing just fine. For their success is only proof that if they can make it, we can too.

Because at the end of it all, what do we get if we let comparison spoil the celebration?