Comparing You

Have you ever stopped and looked around with a little bit of wonder. Have you ever thought about our reality today and understood we’re living in the dreams of yesterday?

What I mean by that is everything you experience, your surroundings, your meals, your clothes, the car you drive, the airplane you’re in, the couch you’re on, were all dreamed up by someone in the past.

Might be 6 months ago. Might be 5 years ago. Might be 100 years ago, but someone, somewhere, dreamed it up.

Those people, like you, are amazing.

They wanted a better world. They wanted a future that was different from the present.

We are living the dreams of yesterday, and from our current vantage point, we can hopefully see farther into the future, and have different, better dreams.

The thing about dreams that people often forget is once they have accomplished that dream, they should appreciate where they are, what they’ve done, and how they’ve gotten to where they are.

Taking the time to reflect on the moment of today is important, because you are living someone’s dream.

Sure, it’s not perfect.

Sure, there are more things you’d want, but the only true comparison you should make is against yourself.

Let me explain.

You can’t compare yourself to the giants of history, or even to the person who invented your chair. You can’t compare yourself to your friends, colleagues, or family. You can only compare yourself to you, and whether or not you are you reaching your potential.

The relevant question is: Are you becoming all you can become?

Are you being the best you, the you that five years ago you could hardly envision?

If you are doing that, pushing your own limits, bumping up against your own boundaries, you will achieve more than you ever thought possible.

Just know along that journey you will fail. You’ll try hard, and fall down anyways.

You will have hardship, you will not be all you can be, at times.

Realize this will happen, just don’t focus on those moments.

Focus on the lessons those moments bring forward. Compare you to previous you.

That is how you get to the next level.