The Reason We’re Washed Up at Thirty (via Daughter of Omi’s Blog)
I once went out with a woman who expressed this feeling to me. She said that she was 33 and felt like she hadn’t accomplished much in her life. I can understand why people feel that way. It is not true however.
One of the most touching scenes on a TV show called M*A*S*H happened between Hawkeye and Colonel Potter. Hawkeye had been eaten up with jealousy over the success of someone else. Colonel Potter said that the only one you can compete against was yourself. I think that’s the key about jealously. No one has had to overcome the challenges you faced in your life. Maybe the challenges that you have already overcome would have stopped other people. Maybe the challenges were impossible.
How can you look at your life and compare it to others? You have no idea the challenges that other people face. Even if they seem to have everything: wealth, looks, intelligence it doesn’t mean that they don’t suffer. It is unavoidable that people suffer. As a healthy human you don’t need to wish people to suffer when they make others suffer. Generally the people who cause the most suffering are suffering the most themselves. More importantly it doesn’t decrease your happiness that other people are happy. In the same way does it increases your happiness that other people suffer? How other people live their life has no bearing own our own reality. We can choose to share our reality but ultimately we are separate from others reality.
Or perhaps I’m wrong and we are all the same person like a widget in a machine. If that’s what you want to believe that is fine, but I will never believe that.
