Someone recently said to me, “The main reason for my unhappiness is because everyone around me is doing so much with their lives and I’m just stuck where I am.”

Many people bring this “unhappiness” on themselves by comparing their life to others’. They see people around them getting married, having kids, buying new houses, taking vacations, driving fancy cars or getting new promotions, and they compare it to their life.

Comparing your life to someone else’s based on what you see from the outside is bound to make you feel unfulfilled and unhappy about your own life. Especially with the advent of social media where people portray ‘virtual lives’ that don’t even exist in the real world. Here’s what you should know about comparing your life to others’:

1. People may look happy on the outside, but you have no idea what struggles they might be dealing with on the inside.
2. Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.
3. Don’t compare someone else’s middle to your beginning.
4. You have your own unique life story to write. There is no blueprint to how life “should” be lived.
5. There will always be someone with more than you; similarly you will always have more than someone.
6. Someone else will trade lives with you in a heartbeat, so be grateful for the one you got.
7. When you consistently compare your life to others, it diminishes your own.
8. Everyone was dealt a different hand in life; so instead of comparing, make the most out of the cards you were dealt, stay in your lane, and work towards making you and your life, the best possible.