Last week, I went to New York for an annual conference my scholarship foundation throws for its scholars. I’ve been a scholar in this foundation throughout my college career (4 years). I’ve made great friends through the foundation. Every year, we’d only all see each other once, and that would be in New York. Since our class is graduating this year, our time in New York last week was the last time we would all be in the same room together. As we were saying our last goodbyes and doing our last toasts, I couldn’t help but recall how I felt being around these people my freshmen and sophomore year. Back then, all the love I would have for them would always have to combat the dark feelings I would get from comparing my accomplishments to theirs.
My scholarship foundation looks to provide excelling students throughout the nation with financial support and mentoring. There’s some top-notch cats in the program: future engineers, doctors, lawyers, Forbes 30 under 30’s, entrepreneurs – the whole shabang. Don’t get me wrong – it is an absolute blessing to be around such driven, gifted people. However, when I was younger I couldn’t really see how great that was because I felt like I couldn’t hang. Every night I would spend in New York ended with me praying that God helped me to be myself and not worry about what everyone else was doing. Every time I would hear about another scholar’s accomplishments the negative thoughts would roll in: “You can’t do that?”, “They got all the attention and you get nothing?”, “You don’t belong here, you’re out of your league.” I would want to clap for everyone when they walked across their stage to accept their awards at the scholars’ ceremony, but in the back of my head, I was just waiting for my time to walk across that stage.
This mindset wore me out. I would end up leaving New York drained and dissatisfied. Thankfully, as I’ve matured and learned to be comfortable in who I am, the comparison thoughts started to not be as prevalent. I think that the comparison thoughts we get stem from us being insecure in what we got going on. Additionally, it stems from us not valuing ourselves and the amount of work we do everyday.
A tactic that I’ve adopted to help conceptualize my problems and come up with proper responses is writing things down. This year, before I even got on the plane to New York, I sat down and wrote the following:
Comparing yourself can distract you from loving other people and even valuing yourself. I get it – sometimes when you compare yourself to someone else it actually can motivate you to do more. So with knowing this, let’s make sure that we only compare to be motivated, but the second we start to feel bad is when we know we’ve gone too far. And if you’re the person who feels bad after comparing yourself to someone else no matter what, THEN DON’T COMPARE YOURSELF – PERIOD.
I’m thankful to have come to this realization before my last time seeing all the other scholars in my class. This realization helped me to genuinely enjoy everyone’s company, show them love, and even get some real motivation to keep doing the Un-Associated thang. If you’re anything like I was, stop comparing. You miss out on a lot of life while being stuck in that mindset. Be free.
