Latest / The Checkpoint Podcast: Questions / Episode 25 | How do you stop comparing yourself to others?
Transcript
- The DECAF Network: Hey, it's Dex, creator of Ruby Player One and host at the Checkpoint. And today's question is, how do you stop comparing yourself to others? How do you stop comparing yourself to others? That's a hard question. And to be perfectly honest, I don't think you ever can. What I can say, at least from experience, and this is good for people that are my age andor older, is that you come to a realization that certain things that you would compare yourself to other people don't quite hold as much weight when you're older as when you were younger. So things that that you would compare yourself to other people, mainly materialistic car you drive, house you have, clothes you wear, looks, all that sort of stuff. You know, when you're in your twenties and thirties, and you know, for some people obviously in their forties, that's always going to be around. But the older you get, i.e. the older that I get, I seem to be doing that much less. And I've I've consciously consciously seen myself wanting things that are at different ends of the scale. Now I love cars. And a lot of my videos will reference cars because that's kind of like my reference point to try and explain things. I find it easier to do that. Now don't get me wrong. I love Porsches. I love I love exotic cars. I love all that sort of stuff. I don't yearn for any of them. I think the closest I would get is is Porsche. I love Porsche. Or Porsche, if you want to, you know, correct my pronunciation. I love them. I think they're really, really cool. Now I've recently recently bought a car for my son, so he can learn manual. And it's nothing flash. It's a Subaru Forester. Turbo, it's manual, it's fun, and I love it. And I drive it now because I don't have a car and and so I bought it for him. So when he gets his licence, it's going to be his car that I'll buy another car for another kid. And the reason why I say that is because the car that I'm driving now, his car, I absolutely love and I'm having so much fun with it. And I've recorded a video where I've said this. And now when I look at car sites and I see what's for sale, I kind of look for the same car as his. And you know, sure I still look at what's selling and what's expensive and what's kind of cool and quirky. But I don't seem to do that as much now. I'm I'm really happy with this car and I find it fun and I buy stuff for it. And it's at the other end of the scale in terms of price. So that that's kind of how I feel with these sorts of things. And the older I get, the older not the older the older I get, the more I find that certain things in life, especially materialistic stuff, I seem to have reassessed. I love shoes too. And at one point I would never buy used shoes. Now I don't care. I if it's if it's cheap, if it's my size and it's not too battered and it's close by, I'll buy it. You know, it it doesn't worry me as much now. You know, there are just certain things that the older you get, the less you sort of give us stuff about other people, hence not wanting to compare as much. I know that that's for me personally. I know some of my friends are are still the same. I know that, you know, there are parts of my family that still, you know, like to compare. I I I guess I I I can't answer for them. I don't wanna go down that path of interrogating them. But I know for me, I find a lot of inner work allows me to take a step back at certain things and decide what it is. that that I might be, you know, comparing myself to other people, people that have money, people that have this and that have that. And and another thing that's really helped me is to to really look at the things that I have and just be grateful for it. You know, I I I don't want to sort of go into the details of things, but what what I have in my life versus what I assume people have from a monetary point of view. and and they could have fortunes that are multi millions over what I have, I would take what I have every day. Just in in terms of what I have with family and friends and and health and all of that sort of stuff. You know? So I I tend to I don't even need to say full strength, but I'm I'm grateful for those sorts of things literally every day. And when I do that, it stops me from wanting to compare myself to other people or to the things that they have. And look, sure at times I might have to actually actively refer back to those things because like I'm not perfect. I'm, you know. There are some people out there that will pop up with something and I'm like, wow, how did that person get that? And you know, it that little bit of jealousy might start coming in. And sometimes I'll just have to go, well, you know what? You've got this. And what it is that I've got, I I wouldn't trade it for for anything in the world. So back to the original question of how to stop comparing yourself to others. Don't. Just it it's such a difficult thing for everyone to to try and do. so I I I don't think it's possible to stop. It will always happen. and the only thing that you can really do, I think, is to put things into perspective, is to have a look at what it is that you really, really have and put priority on that. The good thing is, and the flip side of this is that the comparison component of things can actually be used as fuel for you to do something about it. I've heard it in the past. I use it sometimes, but you know, it it's hard for me to hold those two conflicting thoughts, i.e., be really grateful for what I have, but at the same time try and use something like jealousy to power me to do something to be to have what that person has, it it's hard for me to to sort of hold that, hold both of those thoughts. So how do you stop? Don't just like be grateful for what you have. but on the flip side, use it. Use that use that feeling of comparing yourself, of potentially wanting what it is that person has got. Use that as energy to You know, work harder to think of new ideas, to just keep on grinding. I wouldn't say to stop it because you simply can't. I think that's it for that question. if you've had similar thoughts, we discuss questions like this every week on a Wednesday. If you'd like to be part of that, we do this on Zoom, by the way. leave a comment with the word catch up and I will send you the link. I'm Dex from Uber Player One and the checkpoint, and I will see you on the next video. Bye.