1. Don’t compare yourself to others
2. Don’t compare yourself to others
3. Don’t compare yourself to others
4. Are they you?
5. No?
6. Then don’t compare yourself to them
7. Run your own race
8. Stay in your own lane, both physically and mentally. Also…
9. Don’t compare yourself to others

When you eat, does your pooh come out of them? What? Huh? Why not? Because that would be freaking gross and also make no sense. When they eat, does their pooh come out of you? Oh, look at that, it doesn’t.

Nothing is their fault. Nothing is your fault. All is cause and effect. Input and output.

Your pooh and your pee comes out of you. Similarly, your performance comes out of you — and it’s a function of the inputs (information, experiences) that go into you. Your output comes for your input, not theirs. Stay in your own lane ¹. Eat off of your own plate. Enjoy what you have. That is how you win.

Also, you literally would not want to live in a world in which you were the most awesome at everything. How do I know? Well, actually, thanks to the 1990s cartoon/endless-stream-of-equal-parts-deep-and-cheesy-object-lessons, ReBoot. In one episode, the protagonist (Enzo Matrix, if I recall correctly) becomes the smartest being in his computer universe. But there’s a twist. It’s not that he gets really smart — instead, everybody else becomes super dumb (slow).

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, and all that.

That’s what it would be like to the dog’s bollocks at and of everything at all times. It would suck. And it would bore you. The human nervous system (specifically the parts dealing with the synthesis and secretion (creation and distribution) of dopamine) simply is not built to enjoy that type of world.

Love the friction. Love the grinding. ² Love the learning curve — the whole curve, not just the so-called endpoint. Love yourself.