I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.
Today’s tip is to don’t compare how you feel inside to how others appear outside.
I used to compare myself to others early in my career. The jobs they held, their salary, the projects they’d built or managed. Really, anything that others had accomplished. I think that can be useful early in your career to give you things to strive to accomplish.
Where this falls down is when you overvalue more than a specific goal from someone. While I might have wanted to manage a team of DBAs, or build software that provide real time analytics, I shouldn’t think that someone else’s path is the one I want to walk.
This can be the same phenomenon on Instagram, Facebook, etc. where it appears others have amazing lives and you don’t. Others might be loving their experiences when you’re struggling with the world.
I post the fun things and interesting experiences, but I don’t talk too often about the struggles between these amazing moments.
You don’t see the tough times or thoughts.
At least not many. I do expose more than a few friends think I should, but overall I keep a lot private, between family and friends. I have down times, I have difficult times, I question what I’m doing, how and why, on a regular basis.
My internal world is different from my external world. I try hard to remember that when I see things from others that might make me jealous of them.