how to be the best version of yourself?
The story
Ever catch yourself scrolling through social media, seeing someone you went to high school with, and suddenly wondering what exactly happened to your own life? I have. More times than I’d like to admit. There’s always that one person who seems to have somehow figured everything out years before you did. Maybe they have the impressive job title, the beautiful apartment, the holidays that look like they belong in a travel magazine, the new car, the relationship, the friends, the perfectly timed pictures with captions about how “grateful” they are. Meanwhile, I’m sitting there staring at my phone, thinking about the things I still haven’t accomplished and wondering why I seem to be moving through life at half the speed of everyone else. It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud, because logically I know social media is only a tiny edited piece of someone’s life, but that doesn’t stop the comparison from creeping in. I would look at someone I barely even knew anymore and somehow allow their life to become evidence that I was failing at mine. Their promotion made my job feel less impressive. Their house made my place feel temporary. Their engagement made being single feel like some kind of problem that needed fixing. Even their confidence seemed to highlight every insecurity I had. The strangest part was that these people weren’t competing with me. Most of them probably hadn’t thought about me in years. I was creating an imaginary race in my own head and then getting upset because I thought I was losing it. For a long time, I believed success had a pretty simple formula. You were supposed to finish school, find a good career, earn more money every few years, buy nice things, settle down, and eventually become the kind of person younger people looked at and thought, “They’ve made it.” I didn’t really question where that definition came from. I just absorbed it from family, friends, movies, social media, and basically everywhere else. So whenever my life didn’t match that picture, I assumed something was wrong. I kept thinking I was behind, even though I never stopped to ask what I was supposedly behind in. Life isn’t a school assignment with one deadline. There isn’t some giant scoreboard keeping track of who bought a house first or who became a manager at thirty-two. But I treated it like there was. And over time, that constant measuring started affecting me more than I realised. I could have a genuinely good week, feel proud of something I had done, and then five minutes of scrolling could completely change my mood. Suddenly what had felt like progress seemed small because somebody else had done something bigger. It was exhausting. I was basically handing strangers and old acquaintances control over how I felt about myself, and the craziest thing is that they had no idea they were doing it.
What finally started changing things for me was asking a question that sounds ridiculously obvious now: what do I actually want? Not what would look impressive online. Not what would make an old classmate jealous. Not what I thought I was supposed to have by a certain age. What would actually make my own life feel meaningful? I wish I had asked myself that years earlier, because the answer was more complicated than I expected. Some of the things I had been chasing weren’t really mine. I wanted them because they represented success, not because they would necessarily make me happier. I started realizing that maybe success could be having enough control over my time to see the people I care about. Maybe it could mean waking up without dreading the day ahead. Maybe it’s being financially stable without needing to become insanely wealthy. Maybe it’s building stronger friendships, taking care of my health, learning something I’ve always wanted to learn, becoming more patient, or being able to look at the person I was a year ago and know I’ve grown. None of those things photograph as dramatically as a sports car or a promotion announcement, but they matter to me far more. That was the part I had missed for so long. Success isn’t one universal destination. The person I was comparing myself to might genuinely love the life they built, and that’s great, but that doesn’t automatically mean I would be happy living the same way. We can admire someone without turning their achievements into a judgement of our own progress. That distinction has made such a difference for me. I still compare myself sometimes, because I’m human and social media definately doesn’t make it easy, but I’m getting better at catching myself before I spiral. When I feel that familiar jealousy or inadequacy showing up, I try to ask what it’s actually telling me. Sometimes jealousy points toward something I genuinely want, and if it does, I can use that information. Other times it’s just insecurity wearing a disguise. Either way, it’s more useful than immediately deciding I’m a failure. I’ve also learned that becoming the best version of yourself sounds inspiring, but in real life it’s often boring and repetitive. It means doing small things consistently when nobody is watching. It means making choices that might not impress anyone else. It means accepting that progress can be slow, messy, and sometimes almost invisible. There are weeks where I feel like I’m moving forward and other weeks where I honestly feel like I’ve gone backwards. But when I stop using somebody else’s timeline as my ruler, I notice changes I would have ignored before. I’m calmer. I’m clearer about what matters. My relationships feel more genuine because I’m not constantly evaluating myself against the person standing next to me. And weirdly enough, I’m more motivated now than when I was obsessing over everyone else’s accomplishments. Comparison made me feel like I was running from failure. Defining success for myself makes me feel like I’m actually moving toward something. I wish I had realised sooner that someone else doing well does not mean I’m doing badly. Their life is their life. Mine is mine. The goal isn’t to win some invisible competition against people I once shared a classroom with. It’s to build a life that, even if nobody ever liked a picture of it, still feels good to actually live. 💥
