When we were just little kids we looked up to the “big kids” in our lives. We couldn’t wait to be just like them when we grew up. They always looked like they had their life together and we were envious of them. I remember seeing my older sister, and other family-friends and thinking how I couldn’t wait to be their age. You know, so we could get away with saying “crap” and staying up just a little later on a school night.

Like most little sisters, I thought it was “cool” to play pranks on my older sister. The typical freezing of her bra and TP-ing her room, before she came home from a friend’s house. Looking back, all I can say is, boy was I an annoying little sister. Nonetheless, isn’t it crazy how we thought they had their life together? It’s a never-ending pattern of looking up to those people who are older than us and thinking how we wish we could be them.

Whenever I catch myself daydreaming it’s usually about my future and how I imagine my life being by the time I hit 30 years old. I see myself living in a nice home with a husband, a few kids running around and hopefully more dogs than kids. When these thoughts go through my head, I instantly get anxious about my future. What if my life doesn’t turn out how I want it to? What if, what if…? It’s actually pretty toxic to only think about the future and all of the "what ifs" that coincide with it. At the same time, it’s very difficult for me to only think about the present, because present me is working for future me to have a higher education, a stable job, a reasonable income and a great life. So is there really any way around this? I feel like my brain keeps going in the same circle.

I look up to the older people in my life and I see them graduating college, getting new jobs, moving, getting married, and having children. I look at my current life and I see myself going to college, working and hanging out with friends. I’m currently working on present me while some of my peers are already on future them. It’s difficult to stop my mind from wandering towards the comparison side of things. With the power of social media, it’s almost impossible to stop these thoughts as they appear on all sorts of platforms.

After much consideration, I’ve decided that it is okay to look up to other people and compare their current state to my own. Seeing others succeed should be pushing me to become the greatest me possible. These posts should encourage me to keep taking life head-on, because eventually other people will be looking up to me. Looking up to me and seeing how far I have come in life.

It would be unrealistic of me to ask you to not compare yourself to others because we all do it. I am asking you though to take into consideration how far you have come along in life. Use other people’s positions to motivate you, not discourage you. There is plenty of time for you to get where you wish to be in life. It’s not a race.