My short trip through reality, what really is the competition?
Have you ever taken some lone time to think about yourself, people around you, your decisions and likely outcomes? What did it feel like?
Permit me! Were you happy? Fulfilled? Intimidated? Jealous? Stupid? Unhappy?…What exactly did you feel and do feel?
I’ll tell you an honest truth. At different points and stages in my life, I did that and up till today, still do some self evaluation. While this might be different for individuals, a common thing to all of us is that we feel something whenever we take or get pushed into that lone time centred on us and others.
Media platforms have evolved with time and so also many of us have changed, belonging to one or the other for different reasons.
Sometimes ago, I checked through Twitter and LinkedIn, swiping left and right, scrolling from top to bottom,reading and exclaiming at different points. I had my moments of : wow! Really? Is this even true? My God! This is fascinating. God when?… lol, I know I’m not the only one who has been on this road.
I was quick to say- Damn! Girl you’ve missed a lot. Soon, I started checking through individuals profiles, number of followers, contents and anything more you can imagine. At a point, I had a focus shift from the ‘why’ I visited the places in the first place and the euphoria attached started to disappear into the air as well.
You know why? I kept seeing a lot of people who seemed to have achieved certain feats and I wasn’t close to doing a tenth of it. Followers racing to hundreds of thousands and I’m all like… How did this guys even pull such?
Who will answer my questions? Of course, it wouldn’t be them because I wasn’t going to ask. I felt intimidated and let a little jealousy run.
In that moment, I remembered somethings I’ll also like to share with you.
“Your competition was you, is still you and will always be you.”
None of those guys who got me sulking will know I was lamenting, feeling sorry for myself or whatever I was doing simply because they wouldn’t just have an idea I was, or they are somewhere also beating themselves for the same reason I was.
The idea is, whatever we do isn’t just enough thus, the need to keep striving to achieve something better. You’ve still got a breath, so why not?
Another thing, I’ll like you to keep in mind is:
“the things we admire people for now, are results of the processes they engaged in spaces ago- different timings and seasons.”
Years have been invested by many, months gone down the drain, daily doses of efforts put in,hours of sacrifices, rigorous seconds of not knowing what next... and you want to wake up one morning to have all of those things?
Our dear world works with principles that wouldn’t change so soon. Perhaps, there’s an emerging debate of an individual it worked for that way, you can be sure it is one of the exceptions and that doesn’t make it the rule.
Before you sink deep and deeper into the mud of depression, the people you admire so much now didn’t have it all solved in one day. When some of them starts to get their rewards and results, you should know that they really deserve it. Celebrate them.
Likewise,many till now do not have it all solved however, the underlying difference is that they were, and are still willing to give things up.
What are you willing to give up?
Following the moments through, I returned back to the reason why I visited the platforms initially, which I achieved eventually. This led me to adding more to my list of values and ethics.
Today, I still remind myself as often as possible that, my competition is no other person but ME. I can swipe through my screens with no bad feelings and energy, stay outside the media, think about others and be happy for them, saddle me up with the responsibility of trying harder,…it feels much better.
The next time you want to wallow in self pity, self intimidation, hate for successful people, etc… remember you are your own competitor and competition.
