"She needs to stay in her lane..."

"Girl, stay in YOUR lane!"

"Stay in your lane." It's a phrase that first emerged on the infamous Urban Dictionary in 2007. According to the web page, it means "mind your own business; keep moving straight ahead and don't veer over into my personal affairs." While this phrase has since become a meme sensation and has gained a negative connotation with the person receiving this ~advice~, it might not be such negative advice after all.

Sure, when someone tells you to "stay in your lane", you may grow offended, but they may also just be trying to help you out. If you are constantly concerned with what everyone else is doing in their lives, and compare your life to others lives, you will both grow increasingly unhappy and jealous but also become stagnant.

When you look at the successes and relationships and experiences others have, your focus becomes more on what you don't have than on what you do. This is where the unhappiness kicks in; you look at all the empty voids in your life, and you quickly become consumed with the darkness that looms in these voids.

When these voids blind the goodness in your life, you gradually build up so much anger and disappointment in yourself that you suddenly can't control it anymore. This is when jealousy becomes the friend you never wanted. It will make you hostile toward the people you love because they have what you don't. It will make you push away the people you love because you can't stand to see the faults in yourself that others don't seem to have.

When you have caved into the darkness that is comparing your life to others, and it has completely taken control of your own life's course, you will stagnate. To stagnate is to cease developing; it is to completely halt any growth spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically. It will be impossible to make yourself the healthiest, happiest, and most successful in achieving your dreams because your focus is on others and not yourself.

But you only have one life to live. Why let the course of your life be defined by what everyone else is doing and what everyone else has that you don't?

This is where "stay in your lane" comes in handy. The next time you notice yourself wrapped up in what other people are doing in life, check yourself. Remind yourself that you are the most important person in your life and you are the only person you need to worry about. Not others.

Staying in your lane means to focus on your own growth in all possible ways. It means comparing your past life to your present life and identifying the ways in which you have grown and the gains you have made in the last years, months, weeks, and even days. This is the key to a fulfilling and happy life.

So remember, when someone tells you to stay in your lane, it's probably to benefit both of you. Don't swerve into the lanes of others; you'll only make yourself and others upset.