We have to get away from this toxic idea that we need to compare ourselves to others.
I watched some YouTube videos of people who said they stopped using LinkedIn and were happier about it. I must admit that I have been happier reducing my social media to just LinkedIn. There is just too much garbage out there to waste time with. Too much false information and false images/videos to make social media worth it anymore.
Now unlike those YouTubers I watched I have gotten jobs from being on LinkedIn. Like them, I have also experienced the downsides of being on LinkedIn but that is not this post. This is about why comparison to others is foolish and doesn’t help you.
Reasons why LinkedIn comparisons are unhelpful
- Comparing yourself to someone else isn’t fair to anyone. Everyone has a unique genetic combination of gifts and experience. No one had the past experiences you did. No one had the generational trauma your family experienced. LinkedIn tries to sell its “solutions” to get ahead of others in the fear of not keeping or getting a job. The truth is that we have enough experience and if others don’t want to acknowledge it, that is their problem, not ours.
- I am not rich and I need a job now LinkedIn comparisons help me achieve economic stability. This is a lie. Comparing yourself to others doesn’t help you. The truth is that hiring is made when people consciously or unconsciously like you, and nothing that you do, know, or are doing will change their minds. People are limited to only wanting to trust others like themselves. This is why we see discrimination in hiring. People justify their hiring on the basis of “family friend, relative” regardless of their ability to do their job. Don’t believe that your knowledge is helping you get a job. It is your ability to tolerate their particular form of BS that makes you a good candidate for them.
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self-concept comic Let’s be real. There are always people better and worse than yourself. You will always be somewhere in the middle and that is ok. It is perfectly ok to be average, and it is perfectly ok to be perceived as average. There is nothing wrong with average. However, in our averages, we can be loved and we can find a job. No team has just A players and companies who think they only have A players are deluding themselves. They may have knowledge, they may have attitude/pride, but they don’t excel in what it means to be human. You can’t be good at everything. If someone focuses on knowledge/skills they may lack social skills or not care about the feelings of others. Even the most intellectually backward person, contributes their spirit to an organization and that helps morale and creativity. Don’t downplay what you can’t see.
- What is essential is invisible to the eye. We make KPIs and measure things, but what is most important you can’t measure. You can’t measure creativity, and integrity and companies that lack those elements. I know because I have worked in companies that have failed. Failed society, failed the law, failed basic integrity. They had college degrees, they considered themselves A players, and they were respected until their lack of ethics doomed millions. If you do a job and you don’t hurt others, that is a victory in itself.
- What is the goal of comparisons? If you conclude you are smarter or more knowledgeable, how does that help you? Is God going to give you an achievement award, or is your ego that fragile that it needs constant stroking? Isn’t it a disease and a burden to always need compliments? Isn’t the wise person someone who looks for self-esteem from who they are, rather than what others think of them? Isn’t the most humble person capable of finding joy in living a life that helps others, and doesn’t look for external rewards? What value is money when your friends, family, and love fade away? Ultimately you are only left with yourself at the end of your life, and when you look at your life what will you see? Someone who got ahead by hurting others, or someone who existed and helped others? What do you think will bring you more pleasure?
Do what you want in life, but for me the choice is clear.