I compared myself to a stranger for 45 minutes...

I was up at 6am.

I went for a run through the rice fields with a friend I hadn't seen in a year.

We got coffee after and talked about nothing important.

Then cold plunge and sauna.

It was genuinely one of the best starts to a day one could ever ask for.

By the time I got home it was around 1pm and I felt good.

I sat down to make content. And then I picked up my phone.

I ended up on some guy's profile.
I don't remember how I got there.
But I remember what he had: the 50k months, the apartment, the followers.

I went through all of it; the posts, the stories, the comments.

And then at some point I just came out of it.

I looked up and it had been 45 minutes.

I hadn't started the work. It was almost 2pm. And I felt worse than I did walking in the door.

I've had to be honest with myself about why I did it.

I think it's two things:

I'm 30 and I'm still working out what I want. And somewhere in the back of my head there's this idea that the answer is already out there, and that if I look at enough people who seem to have it, some of it will transfer.

That's what I'm actually doing when I go through a stranger's profile for 45 minutes.

I'm not admiring him.
I'm searching.

When nothing is happening and it's quiet, I get uncomfortable, and filling that space with somebody else's life is the easiest thing there is.

So I sat down to make something, and spent the next 45 minutes consuming somebody else's instead.

And when I actually looked at what I'd been jealous of, most of it wasn't something I wanted.

Every single thing I thought I wanted is a quantity.

But not one thing I actually want has a number in it.

I already have most of what I actually want.

I can order food without doing math.
There are 87 of you and some of you write back.
I've trained every morning for more than 200 days on a body that works fine.

I am in the middle of building the life I’ve dreamed of.

But no one tells you that you feel more lost the further you go through your journey.

I should poke a hole in this before somebody else does.

I wrote that list afterwards. After I'd already put the phone down and felt bad about it.

So there's a version of this where I'm just making myself feel better.
Where I couldn't get the 50k months, so I decided I never wanted them in the first place.

I've sat with that one and I don't think it's what's happening. Mostly because the second half of that list didn't come from that afternoon. It came from years of actually getting some of the things I wanted and finding out how they felt once I had them.

But I can't prove that to you. And I'd rather say so than pretend the list is cleaner than it is.

I still compare.
I did it that morning, I've done it since, and I'll probably do it again this week.

But here are some practical tips that helped me learn how to compare less:

You’re comparing your entire life to a fraction of theirs and only see the parts they choose to share. Maybe the grass isn’t greener, but just a different shade.

Comparing back is the one you always win, because you were there for every single day in between, and nobody gets to take those off you.

Comparison can't start until you stop noticing your own life, which means the way out is already in the room with you. You just have to look at what's already there.

Whatever you give your attention to is what your head fills up with. You can’t control what others do, but you can control your efforts, mind, and perspective.

There is no correct way a life should look. They're just somewhere else, doing something different with their one life.

I don't think you can think your way out of comparing yourself to people. I think you just have to go live enough of your own life that someone else's life seems less enticing.

What's something you thought you wanted, until you looked at it closely?

Hit reply and tell me.

See you in two weeks,

— Chun