Comparisons

Good day, and welcome back to my blog. :)

Last night, my mom emailed me a link to a blog that she reads every now and then. It was about "being enough." When are you enough? When have you arrived at the destination you want to get to? And probably most importantly, how can you compete with the world around you?

The blog post talked about a memories that this lady had had. Memories of growing up. School, family, things like that. She said that that was when she learned about talents. Her parents helped her develop talents. She thought she was on top of the world!

...Until she grew up. Soon she found out that "[My neighbors] could back flip circles around my wimpy trampoline flip and my supposed babysitting and art skills dimmed almost to obliteration when compared to the flashy talents of others."


Then she continued on to talk about our specific talents. We all have them. We all have developed a few of them (though definitely not fully yet). But if you compare your skills to those of your peers, well then that's basically a dead end road right there. Let me just share a few quotes from the post.

I began to strive to reach that pinnacle peak where I would be “enough” to all those around me. But I realized that the trouble with that tactic is that if I compared myself to others, I’d never, ever be enough. Because it’s part of human nature to compare our worst to their best. And that’s not what “being enough” is all about. We must realize that the only person we can truly compare ourselves to is ourselves. We want to be our best selves. And we are the only ones who can discover who that “best self” really is amidst the layers of self-criticism and uncertainty that filter in from the world.

Brilliant. I couldn't have said it better myself.

I have been faced with this problem plenty of times. I'm sure that everyone has! When you think things like, "I'll never be that good!" or maybe, "How can I compete against this?" It always has a single effect: SELF DOUBT. Don't let that be you! You dig yourself into a deep pit, from which it'll be hard to get out of. A pit where the only way out is down.

Without a doubt we are surrounded by people on all sides who are going to be able to do things better than we can . . . This can be inspiring and uplifting or it can throw us into a swirl of depression. My answer to this is that I try not to compare myself to others. I try to compare myself to myself. Sure it’s great to be inspired by others. Sure it’s great to have role-models and to strive for excellence. But the tricky part is to figure out what is enough for us personally. That is what will bring true happiness. We’re competing only against ourselves.

Personally, I think the only person, the only human that has ever lived on this earth, that we need to strive to be like is Jesus Christ. But again, we are far from being like him! He was perfect, we sin daily. He has perfect love, we get mad at our siblings for taking too many cookies. But it's not unrealistic to strive to become like Christ! Because of the Atonement, we have an infinite amount of restarts, try again's, and start over's.

I thought that this blog post was amazing. If you want to check it out, I'll put the link below.

http://www.71toes.com/2012/03/being-enough.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+71toesrss+%2871+toes+RSS%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

So farewell, and remember! You don't have to strive to become better than your neighbor at air hockey (even though that's a glorious feeling!). You don't need to be the smartest fish in the bowl to feel successful.

The only thing you need to measure yourself are your past accomplishments.

So shoot for the stars!