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Dear Friends,
When I was in my early twenties, I came across a short passage with some life advice. I have zero recollection of where it came from or who wrote it. All I know is I saved it by emailing it to myself, and over the years I’ve reread it and shared it with friends more times than I can count.
Here it is:
Don’t concern yourself with being better than everyone else. That will mainly get you resentment, disappointment, or both. Focus instead on being better today than you were yesterday, on being even better tomorrow than you are today.
When you compare yourself to others, you’ll either end up being disappointed or you’ll end up being arrogant. Instead, compare yourself to yourself. The important thing is to make progress in your own life. Upstaging someone else simply won’t bring you any true gain. Improving yourself will.
We all share certain things in common, and yet no two people are the same. There is no one who is better than you. And at the same time, you are better than no one else. You are unique. You are beyond compare. Make the most of it. Make it better and better each day. Stop worrying about everyone else and you’ll free up enormous energy to be the best you can be.
— Author Unknown
Growing up, I was a pretty happy, confident kid. I didn’t really get jealous of other people who had more than me, whether it was money, popularity, achievement, whatever. But I did measure myself against other people, and I took some comfort in knowing I was “doing better” than others.
But when I read the line in the passage about arrogance, it kind of stopped me in my tracks.
The reason you don’t compare yourself to others is not only to protect yourself from feeling unworthy or badly, but it’s also about not letting yourself become someone you don’t want to be.
In other words, don’t compare yourself into misery, and don’t compare yourself into being an asshole either.
I internalized this advice more than any other life advice I can remember and I’ve tried to live by two simple rules:
Focus inward
Focus on improvement
It’s great to be competitive. Just compete with yourself and try to be better today than yesterday.
This passage has lived in my email drafts for two decades. When I catch myself comparing myself to others, feeling like I haven’t accomplished enough, or even getting a little too proud of what I have, I come back to it and reread it. More than any book or mentor or piece of advice, this short passage has helped me the most, not just in terms of personal and professional growth, but in staying grounded and mentally balanced.
I’ve been meaning to share this publicly, in case it helps someone else the way it has helped me. An occupational hazard of building a business on top of a social network is that I end up spending a lot of time in social feeds. Social media (especially crypto social media) is ground zero for comparison.
Who has the most followers?
Who got the airdrop?
Who’s on the leaderboard?
Who has the biggest wallet balance?
Who made the most money on a trade?
It’s interesting and often fun. But it’s also a great reminder that the only comparison that actually matters is you vs. you.
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Related Reading:
Status as a Service by Eugene Wei, “humans are status seeking monkeys”
Mindset by Carol Dweck, which introduces the concept of fixed vs. growth mindset
I started this substack in December 2022 as an experiment to see if developing a writing habit would help clarify my thinking and/or provide other benefits. You can read about my original intentions in my first post or my more recent reflections after sticking with it for a year.
I write about twice a month and share musings, meditations, and links to things I’m finding interesting as I build out a farcaster-native media company, a modern technology consulting company, raise my kids, and have fun creating and learning in the worlds of crypto, tech, finance, science and wellness.
Thank you for supporting my writing and journey. If you’d like to get in touch you can reply to me here or find me on X and farcaster.
Until next time, keep putting good into the world. —adrienne🌏❤️
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