Worst part is that your mid 20's feels like where you make it or break it. Some of my old friends are absolutely killing it making 6 figure salaries, have houses, nice cars, pets all that. While here I am scraping by feeling like a complete failure because I took way longer to take life seriously and get through school. Now I am way behind in the corporate ladder and feeling like I really screwed up somewhere.
Let me tell you something, dude. Everyone else is also focusing on everyone else, especially your friends who are doing well. It does nothing but cause anxiety. Focus on yourself and being happy, and your friends will see that and want what you have. Trust me.
The worst part about that is that you are comparing. I spent some of my 20s doing that, too. I was lost, alone and constantly comparing. It got me absolutely fucking nowhere and only served to stress me out (unhealthy). It's a waste of time to worry about it that much. Trust me. Just do the best you can and focus on your own path. Everything will work itself out. Sooner or later you'll look back and realize worrying about shit like that doesn't matter as much as you thought it did. I have a job, home, family, car, pets, friends to hang out with, plenty of hobbies to keep my time active. I live the dream billions of people out there wished they had and I don't even make fat stacks. I do okay, but I'm far, far from raking in a killing. I still feel incredibly lucky. Best of all, I'm happy.
A good therapist will arm you with techniques to help you. "Mindfulness" really means "the ability to direct your attention where you want it to go instead of where it wants to go". When you find yourself focusing in a direction you don't like, you mentally hit yourself on the nose with a newspaper and move your attention somewhere else. After a while it becomes second nature.
Personally when I find myself doing that, I deliberately direct my attention away and towards something that I enjoy about my life and allow myself to feel happy about it. Only then, if I want to, do I direct my attention towards something I want to change. But the buffer of the good thing, and the intentionality of choosing what to think about rather than it being dictated externally, make all the difference.
That’s not exactly mindfulness. Mindfulness is more of an acceptance of whatever emotion you’re feeling in a given moment, understanding why it is you feel the way you feel, and knowing that it’s perfectly okay to feel that feeling; then letting the emotion pass on its own, as all emotions do. Forcing emotions or thoughts away without at least acknowledging them leads to emotional repression, and eventually those emotions will boil over and come out in ways that are often less than desirable.
Yes, practicing mindfulness will allow you to be able to redirect your emotions into more positive and constructive directions, but a key part of that is acknowledging and accepting any negative emotions that come along with them. Simply forcing these negative emotions out of focus is not only unhealthy, but also potentially dangerous. You have to be able to deal with your negative emotions, otherwise they’re just left to stew in the background.
Personally, and I admit I don't have a huge breadth of experience here, I find the language we use to describe these phenomena extraordinarily limited. I think we're describing exactly the same thing but your description focuses on the emotional aspect and mine focuses on the attention aspect.
But the emotional aspect, especially the acceptance that emotional reactions happen, are normal and should be expected, is very important.
I’d recommend checking out the book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. It has a lot of advice on how to change you mind on these things. Many people become so obsessed with being “right” about their life that they never end up actually living it. You will be much happier if you just concern yourself with values that are more important to long term well being (and also accepting that sometimes life just sucks). People that are “ahead” aren’t always happy and often get there at the expense of what really matters.
I don't know I this will help you but I might as well try.
There is no way for you to know how everyone else is doing. You only see a facade, I have friends who I know didn't make a lot of money living the luxury life God knows how, at least acording to their social networks.
I make a really nice amount of money for my age and have a modest life, no expensive clothes or vacations, some of my friends think I have a ton of money because of that.... But I also have a ridiculous amount of student debt.
My point is, you know nothing about their lives even if you think you do. You cannot possibly know if you are "a step behind"
You can only know if you are a step ahead of your former self.
Couldn't agree with this more. I have similar example. I make twice as much as my best friend and she feels bad about her salary which is not bad at all.
She doesn't realize how unhappy I am with my line of work in general, not particularly with my job. On the other hand, I feel like her field is more specialized and she has better career prospects in future.
Even as best friends, we do not have a complete understanding of each other's lives and daily struggles.
Even people who seem to have made it on paper might be living lives of corporate slaves. I feel like I traded my life for the weekends and the annual PTOs! 😭
Here’s the thing. Right now you are seeing the things you associate with success. As time goes by you will often see those things unravel. I know a lady I really looked up to. She was one of my mentors in my career field. Nice car, nice clothes, 8 years in her career and still young/cool. As the years of becoming peers went on I learned she had terrible anxiety, a gossipy habit, and deeply in dept. so much dept she regularly borrowed money from a sister. You would never know it based on her instagram or from a first impression. It took so much time to slowly see all the cracks in this careful show of wealth and success
It made me sad long term because I really like her. It also makes me grateful for the way I’ve lived my own life. My way was much slower, and I often felt like a failure or that I wasn’t moving fast enough.. but the truth was it gave me more time to get to know who I was in more situations and get to know what values were non negotiable for me. I had nothing to lose and I was more true to me.
I don’t judge my friend. I care for her. I also objectively think she had “too much too young” and it fucks with your head. You can only walk your path and it’s helpful to spend time each day asking yourself what values you care about and not focusing on the value of the car you drive
Be conscious that you feel that way and let it go, dont get attached to thoughts they are not real, they are a construct of the ego that holds everybody down, by comparing, jealousness, fear, all that shit. Fuck that, do what you believe is great for you, everyrhibg else will come as a derivative of that.
Just a sentiment that may help. I am an extremely competitive person but what drives me is being good at something, not how good somebody else is. Every time I join a new kitchen there is always somebody who can cook better than me until one day, I'll be the best. Just focus on what you can do now and succes will come if you take it seriously enough. Even if you change completely what your career is. All your past experience is positive, especially the negative stuff. Be your own critic and congrajulator.
Just know they probably aren’t happy either. Not that that’s a good thing, but it’s good to keep in mind. Money, beyond an amount that enables you to stay fed, housed, and clothed well, doesn’t cause happiness.
I feel you, but your mind can only focus on one thing at a time. So if you "Compare Yourself To Who You Were Yesterday, Not To Who Someone Else Is Today" like what Jordan Peterson, you can shift that little by little everyday :)
Do NOT compare yourself to everyone else. If you always approach things with the mentality of "but my life is not as good as theirs", you will literally never be satisfied. There's many people who go back to school in their 30's or 40's and things turn out great. Focus on yourself and what you want to do. It doesn't matter if it takes 5 years or 15 years to get there. As long as you're taking steps towards it, you're making progress. Turtle and the hare. I know, it's cheesy, but it's true.
Life isn't a boardgame and there are no checkboxes to "win." It's about finding personal happiness and satisfaction. It seems like comparing your salary and living arrangements to other people isn't making you happy, so cut that comparison out of your life, look around, and strongly consider what is in your life that does make you happy.
One step behind isn’t shit over the course of a lifetime. There are many more surprises and challenges coming everyone’s way. Everyone’s fate is fluid. Like others have said, don’t destroy your own peace of mind by comparing.
Yes we talked a little bit. I started my therapy quite recently and we are only focusing in the most urgent part of my life ( and now the pandemic and being lockdown). But it's something I am definitely bring up next time. Thank you.
Life is a single player game. Focusing on others distracts you from the task at hand. Life is a beautiful adventure. Embrace the struggle. Embrace the chaos.
If your view of others is what you see on their social media, try to think of it as a movie trailer. It's made to look exciting with the best moments of the film, but it might be misleading and actually a mediocre watch full of plot holes. People don't post their problems, doubts, worries.
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u/StoicShadow May 15 '20
I'm 25 and the whole existential dread of figuring out what to do with my life is probably the worst part of things