It is hard to genuinely feel proud of ourselves these days.

I say this for many reasons, the main one being social media. I have spent more time than I care to admit feeling irrelevant because of what I see other people are doing. I know this sounds silly, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. I could spend all day doing the most productive task in the world (and feel proud about it), but then log on to social media and realize how much more accomplished other people my age really are than I am. But this doesn’t mean I haven’t accomplished anything.

We have to remember that the people we see and follow on social media (celebrities), or even people in our daily lives (friends or classmates) are people who have grown up under different circumstances than we have. We all have various challenges to tackle every day, and even different goals and motivations for our lives. We have to remember that just because someone is doing something great, it doesn’t mean that we aren’t doing something great. We are probably just doing something different.

This doesn’t mean that we should delete all of our social media accounts to avoid the risk of feeling bad about ourselves (and yes, I have considered doing this, but if you know me, you know that I would probably never survive). But it does mean that we should build up our self-esteem, and remind ourselves that we are doing the best we can under the circumstances we are in.

Yes, there are people my age who have starred in movies, gone on world tours, and written books, but that doesn’t lessen the things I have accomplished in my life.

We have to remember that we shouldn’t look at things other people have done and think, “Wow, that person is so much better and more successful than I am because they are doing that.”

Instead we should think, “What that person is doing is so wonderful, and I am happy for them, but what I am doing is also wonderful, and I am proud of myself.”

Throughout life, there are going to be people who appear to have everything together more than you do. There are going to be people who you are jealous of because of their accomplishments, but you shouldn’t belittle your own achievements because of this. The key is to change that jealousy into pride for them, but also feeling pride when looking back on your own successes.

If anything, watching other people succeed should motivate you more than ever.

Because you never know when someone could be watching your life from the sidelines and wondering how you are so successful. There could be people admiring your achievements as well.

The moral of the story is, I am proud of my accomplishments, and you should be too.