I’d be lying if I said that I don’t sit enviously stalking my peers on social media just wishing I had a life as cool and successful as theirs. If I’m going to be completely honest, this has become a very bad habit of mine that has blossomed quite recently, and it is one that for some reason, I’m just not able to shake.

Lately I’ve been catching myself spending several days in a wallowing pit of despair, hating myself for all the startups I haven’t launched, movies I haven’t starred in, charity events I haven’t organized, and overall, all of the things I haven’t done that someone else my age has. I’m often plagued with feelings of incompetence, immobility, and inferiority. Sometimes I feel like I’m so far behind the rest of my peers that it is impossible to catch up.

I used to be really great at tuning out what everyone else was doing with their lives and focusing on myself, but as I’ve grown older, the pressure to do something big, and to do it now, has begun to make it extremely difficult to not let other people’s successes dictate my own.

And I think that there is a unique sense of universality when it comes to feeling this pressure, in that it frequents the majority regardless of their perceived successes. I used to believe that I was the only one who felt behind in life, but upon internet stalking one of my peers, who I believe has accomplished far more in their life than I ever have, seeing a blatant “I feel so behind” post made me realize how common this feeling of being behind truly is. It’s incredible, really.

But, it’s also highly understandable.

These days, it seems like all anyone ever posts about on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and even Snapchat, are all of the amazing things they’re doing and accomplishing. The rise in social media as a means for self-promotion, marketing, and branding especially, has made it ridiculously easy to fall into this all-consuming mindset. It’s simple. When facing everyone else’s successes becomes inescapable, it, in turn, becomes inevitable that our first instinct be to compare them to our own.

As a society, we have cultivated an unhealthy tendency to let other people's successes define our own, creating the very false dichotomy that if our successes are not equal to or greater than someone else’s, then they are inherently considered to be failures.

But the one thing that we have collectively failed to realize is that this false dichotomy is exactly that-- false. Other people’s successes are in no way our failures. In fact, other people’s lives in general should pose no significant influence over ours and how we perceive the quality of it.

While it might feel like you are treading water while everyone else is somehow an olympic swimmer, the reality is that you are not far behind at all. You’re just on a different path to your gold medal, and it may be in an entirely different event.

The point is, just because someone is succeeding in a different manner than you are, it doesn’t make either one of you inferior to each other. Everyone is on their own path to greatness that is entirely unique to themselves. No two paths are composed of equidistance, shape, and most importantly-- destination.

What’s written in the stars for you is and always will be. Have patience, and trust that you are exactly where you need to be.

It took me a very long time to learn that just because someone else is accomplishing amazing things, it doesn’t reflect on or diminish the value of my accomplishments at all. I’m on my own path to greatness, and that path just may not involve a million-dollar startup at the age of 17. That doesn’t mean that I’m falling behind the rest of my peers, and it certainly doesn’t mean that I am not and will not be successful in life. The truth is, I have accomplished some pretty cool things in my life thus far and I’m going to accomplish more.

I promise you that you have already accomplished so many amazing things, and that you will continue to do so as well.

Rather than using other people’s successes as a model for what your life should be like and spiraling into a routine of self-deprecating over all the little things you haven’t done (I’ve been there, it’s not fun), instead try to be happy and excited for what others are accomplishing, and use their successes as motivation to reach your own. Think about how awesome it is that they’re all out there doing great things for themselves and then find your own great things to do, and start now.