COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHERS! TIMELINES ARE BULLSHIT! – 5 Ways to Leverage Your Dysfunction – 039

Use comparison to win. – AUDIO NSFW

Thank you my childhood for fucking me up. Thank you childhood for fucking me up. You know I got two young kids and we are now entering into the world of grades and grading and this types of bullshits in schools. Now, I’m not going to use broad swaths here as I criticize our educational system, but I’ll tell you one thing that I absolutely despise about our educational system. It’s that we create hierarchy. The educational systems of today create hierarchy in which it is natural to look at oneself in comparison to everyone else. Where are you on the ladder? Where are you? You’re certainly not the valedictorian. You’re certainly not the salutatorian. You are somewhere maybe if you’re lucky just in the middle. 

Our childhood and the educational system has pre-programmed us to be fucked up when it comes to comparison. This is one of the things I hate the most! This is one of the things I hate the most about social media. I despise it. The anxiety it gives me for the younger generation—not that I really care that much—but when I get to thinking about it, it really hurts my heart to know that immature minds on social media will compare themselves to others. 

We grew up in a world in which comparison was not only natural, but it was programmed and pushed and supported into our minds. It starts at a young age. It starts at a young age. It’s a natural thing for us to compare each other. We learn early as children. We learn early as young adults that other people live different lives and people drive different cars. They live in different houses – some bigger than others. Some dress nicer than others. Some dress worse than others. 

This comparison idea, this natural inclination to compare ourselves to other people only intensifies as we grow into immature adults. The worst problem is it becomes some semblance of some neurosis or some psychological dysfunction in our brains because we continue as we get into adult life using this comparison thing. It turns into negative self-programming. Nowhere more clearly is this seen as a parent with a young child, young adolescent learning about life and naturally coming up with comparison verbage, stuff like “I’m not good enough”. 

I can’t do everything right.

I can’t do anything right. 

I can’t do it like Sally. 

I can’t do it like Suzy. 

Mark is just better than me. 

I’ll never make it like Jerry. 

I’ll never be able to do it like Sam.

The problem is and this is the conversation that I have with my young kids is every time they give me that bullshit, that negative programming, I say you’re right. I say you’re 100% right. No matter what you think, no matter what you think, you are 100% right. If you think you can’t do it. Guess what? You’re right. I’ll tell you. If you think you can do it, you’re also right. If you need more information on this, go back into my podcasts and search for what you think about is what you become. What you think about is what you become. This is the whole idea of programming yourself to success, programming yourself to positivity, programming yourself to a better life. 

I think that the younger generations are fucked. I truly believe this and in so many ways. I’m talking about the masses here. But I think that the younger generations are so fucked unless they hear the words from people like me to tell them to stop comparing with other people, to stop looking at your life and measuring it by fucking social media. Please don’t miss this, guys. Social media is just the highlight reel. It’s just the highlight reel of an incomplete life online. That’s it! Social media is the highlight reel. That’s all! 

All these kids that are that are jumping onto these new social platforms – Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok. Holy shit! I don’t even know what’s gonna be coming out in the future when it comes to social systems. But I’m telling you, when I downloaded TikTok for the first time, I knew that the younger immature minds, the younger immature generation, the younger immature children who act like adults on this social platform and their parents have given them access to this social platform and phones at 7, 8, 9 years old, the fuck is wrong with you? 

These children do not have the mental maturity to deal with the influx of what they see the social signals, the social programming, the images that they see. They’ll never live up to the rockstars. They will never live up to the superstars and all the people that have their lives “look like they’re put together” online. 

When I browse these social platforms, it saddens me because all I see are the highlight reels of, in reality, relatively boring and nondescript lives just like mine. You see, my life isn’t all that interesting, frankly. And if you go to any of my social pages, you’ll only see the highlight reels. Admitted! 100%! I admit it. I admit it. I’m raising my hand. I admit it. When you look at my social pages, it’s just the highlight reels. It’s just the stuff I want you to see. It’s just the stuff that is really exciting to me! 

But in reality, my life is just as mundane, boring, rote, routine as anyone else’s. It truly is! And if you follow me long enough, it’s clear. I just fucking sit in my garage and pump out work, write code, and deliver content. That’s what I do! 

But with these young minds, the worst part about this comparison, especially as we grow into adults, is the comparison doesn’t leave us. The worst part about comparison is that your mind falls into the trap of filling in all the gaps of the other individual. You don’t know about that person. You end up creating timelines. That’s the worst part. Timelines are bullshit. Timelines are complete bullshit! 

We look at these other people’s lives and we compare ourselves to them and we create these timelines. Where do they come from? These timelines like oh, man, I need to be able to graduate by this time. I need to marry by… I need to have kids by this time. I need to get my first job, promotion by this time because Jimmy did it, Sally did it, Arnold did it. I need to be able to achieve X,Y, and Z by this time because Peter did it, John did it. I need to have a dream event like buying a Lamborghini or buying my dream car, buying my dream house or moving it to my dream location. I need to have this event happen by… I need to have some sort of win by, some victory by. I need to be able to do X, Y, fuck that shit! 

Timelines are bullshit! Remove timelines from your brain because you have no idea what it took, how long it really took to get there. This is one thing that is imminently curious to me whenever I look into an individual, a successful individual’s life. One of the first things I do, it’s just natural for me because I want to understand kind of the inner workings at best I can or at least as best as advertised by that individual, is I often look how long did it really take that person to succeed? 

I find it fascinating when people, especially trolls, will look at successful people and say, yeah, this guy was an overnight success. Overnight my ass! Yeah, you’re right. He was an overnight success. He’s just been working for 15 bloody years and then suddenly, he was an overnight success. Yeah, I can get that. I can dig that. I can get behind that. 

There are no overnight successes, guys. Comparing yourselves to other people, comparing ourselves to other people especially within timelines is craziness. It’s insanity. Fuck timelines! They’re bullshit. I wrote some notes down. I wrote some notes down when it comes to comparison because I’ve been going through this with my children. I’ve been kind of seeing this online. It’s just something that I wanted to talk about and I think it’s germane to what’s going on with the world today. 

What I wrote down on the title here, I said 5 ways to leverage comparison. Now, you might have never heard of this vantage point before, but I have to concede and you’ll have to excuse me here for a second as I think about it. I have to concede the fact that comparison will never end. Comparison will never end. This is a natural occurrence in humanity. It’s a natural occurrence when you grow up as a child and it will continue unabated until you are dead, until the day that you die. 

The successful individuals, mature individuals, they leverage the comparison rather than let comparison stall them or let comparison immobilize them or let the comparison get them down in the dumps and depressed. 

I rarely compare with other people on a negative level. Actually, I probably say I almost never do it. I don’t think that any time that ever look at someone else to say damn they did that? What’s wrong with me? No, I never look at that. Because I’m a whole human. I’m a whole person. I’m content with who I am. I know who I am. I know my limitations, I know my strengths. And this self-knowledge is really important. You probably should go back and search for that in my other podcasts. 

5 WAYS TO LEVERAGE COMPARISON TO OTHERS:

1. Get energized. 

You’ve probably heard that before. Comparison is the thief of joy. There only can come misery and pain by thinking about yourself in comparison and relation to others. It steals your joy in that moment if you’re negative, if you look at them and say wow, they have X and I don’t got it and I can’t do it and I won’t be able to. Yeah, that’s the negative bullshit. Fuck that! Get energized is what I’m telling you. This whole idea of comparison is the thief of joy. Fuck that shit. Comparison is the insider of energy for me. 

Work harder. Do better. Consider what they had to go through, what they had to overcome to get to where they are .We can all intellectually understand, if you’re young and you’re listening to this, you can theoretically understand this. That nothing great ever just happens. Nothing great ever just happens. Frankly, nothing great ever happens from planning. Greatness is merely a culmination of days, weeks, months, and years of hard work. 

Whenever you compare yourself to someone else, get energized. Consider what did they have to go through to overcome, what type of hard work did they need to do to get there, and maybe that’s why they’re so stinking happy in that post that you got to see with a 100,000 likes and a 100 million thumbs up. Maybe that’s why they’re so happy because they have overcome the mountain, they have overcome their weaknesses, and they have gone through the fire of hard work to get there.

Whenever you compare yourself to someone else, get energized.

1. Stop wasting time.

One of the worst things about comparison it takes up your fucking time! It takes up your time. It stalls your progress. When you’re comparing yourself to others, you’re just wasting time. Let’s be honest. I’ve been there too. I’ve been there too. Let’s be honest. How much time have you wasted on your fucking mobile phone swiping up? Hmm? How much time have you wasted on your mobile phone swiping up watching stories, watching other people in their success? Fuck social media! Fuck social apps! 

Stop wasting your time watching other people’s highlights and do something! Do something with yours. Create your own highlights. Create your own memories. Stop watching others. Unfollow people. Leave the conversation. Leave the group. Leave the chat. Leave the social whatever. Leave it! 

I can’t tell you how many times when I have gone through housecleaning in my social media life. Every time that I go through housecleaning and I unfollow people and I leave groups and I leave social networks people get so salty. It’s almost as if they want me to continue to watch them so that I do nothing in my life. Does that make sense? It’s almost as if they want me to be part of the fakery that they’re faking out on their social media too. 

Remember, what everyone on social media is just showing each other highlights of an otherwise mundane and boring life. Throw that shit away. Unfollow people. Stop stalling your own progress by spending hours swiping up. 

I see kids and it crushes me. Maybe this is just because I’m getting old and ornery, but sometimes when I will watch kids just heads down literally inches from the fucking phone swiping up, swiping up, double tapping for a heart or double tapping for a like. I just want to rip that phone out of their hands and smash it on the ground. What is wrong with you? Why is this important? 

The worst part is when I see adults. Sometimes, I’m in the gym guys, and I see guys working their thumbs more than they’re working out any other body part. They’re just working out their thumbs. A gym is an excuse for them to swipe up and double tap with their thumbs.

1. You are physically different from others.

Guess what guys? When you compare yourself to others, you just need to remember that you are physically different from them. Period. End of story. You can’t change your ugly ass nose. You can’t change your terrible hairline or your male pattern baldness. You change the fact that one leg is just slightly longer than the other, which by the way, I think most people have that issue anyway. 

You can’t change your physical appearance. You can’t change anything about you. This is a good thing. Whenever you compare yourself to someone else, you should just look at them and say wow, they don’t look like me. Maybe that is enough of a difference for me to realize that that’s their life and mine is my own. 

There’s a great Greek philosopher, his name is Zeno. He said, “Man conquers the world by conquering himself.” You is you! It’s you versus you. This is a good thing. You know why? Because you have unique talents. You have unique skills. You have unique opportunities that no one else in the world has and no one in the world will ever get. You’re the only one! Think about this. Think how special this is. You are the special. 

Think about this. You have unique skills. You have unique talents. And you’re the only one in the world who will ever be given the opportunities that you’re gonna get. And you might say, well, other people—No, no, no, no. No one will ever have the opportunities presented to them the way that you will have those opportunities presented to you. I hope that you’re prepared for those opportunities when they come. I hope that you’ve lived a life of diligence, a life of hard work, a life of discipline, so that when the opportunity comes, you’re not sitting there with your thumb swiping up comparing yourself to others. I can conquer the world because I’ve first conquered myself. 

The last note I want to put on this one when it comes to your unique talents, your unique skills, guess what, you have a unique time on this earth. That’s it. A unique time—why are you gonna spend time comparing yourself to others when your time is tick tick ticking away and you ain’t getting no younger brother. 

1. No perfect life.

You just have to realize when you’re comparing and looking at other people that there is no perfect life. Ain’t nobody got no perfect life! Remember the social media is the highlight reel and you don’t know shit about the other person. You don’t know shit about the other person. No one is exempt. No one is exempt from pain and suffering in this world, in this life. You don’t think they haven’t gone through pain and suffering in order for them to achieve that which they’re showing you on their highlight reel? You don’t think they have burned and earned the right to smile through gritted teeth in that picture? Because they know and only they know, no one else will ever know. But only they will know what sacrifices had to be made in order for this to happen. I’ll tell you brother, I’ll tell your sister, I guarantee you, that if you were to sit now these successful people that they would tell you stories of what they sacrificed. 

I’m telling you, every time that you talk deeply with a world champion in anything, they will sit down with you and say I had to lay this at the altar of sacrifice. I had to lay my family on the altar. I had to lay my father, my mother. I’d have to betray my brother to do this. I had to betray my sister. I had to lose all my friends. I had to go broke to do this. I had to lose everything so that I could be here. You don’t know shit about what they went through to get there. Guess what? No one else will ever understand what you will have to go through to get to the goals that you want to achieve. No one gives them from pain and suffering and most of all, the ones that you see online are frankly, just better at keeping their own shit together at least on the outside. 

I find it fascinating and find it actually depressingly ironic. It’s like part of the travesty of life when the world is ignoring you in the world is turning away from you and the haters are hating on you and your life is crumbling, but you’re holding it all together. I salute you! I salute you, warrior! I salute you, sister. I salute you, brother. 

When the world is crumbling around you in the world is dying, the world that you know is crumbling around you. You lost your job. Your sister’s sick. Your wife is pissed and wants a divorce. Finances are shit. The world’s crumbling around you and you are holding your shit together. I salute you because that is what life is about. Fuck comparison! You don’t know about what’s going on! All you see is the outside. No one’s immune. No one will get away from it.

1. There’s always someone better than you.

There’s always someone better than you. You just have to remember, whenever you’re comparing yourself to anyone else, there’s always gonna be someone better than them at what they’re doing. And there’s always going to be someone better than you at what you’re doing. 

The goal isn’t to be the best in the world. That’s never gonna happen. The goal is to be the best version of you now and the best version of you in the future. The best version of you at all times. Fuck the world. Fuck comparison. Fuck social media. You know what? I’ve had people in my past tell me that they’ve deleted social media and to this day, I believe they still are not reengaged. These people are ridiculously successful. They didn’t care about what anybody thinks. You should probably go back to my podcast on that too! 

The 5 reasons why you should never give a fuck about what other people think. Stop comparing yourself to others. This is something that school won’t teach you. School teaches you to compare. It is intrinsic to that very system, that dysfunctional system.

So let me ask you guys this as we’re rolling out. What are you gonna do the next time you feel compelled to compare? 

This is Peter, The Bitcoin Lambo. If you appreciated this episode, feel free to share it with someone in your network, subscribe and smash the like button. Hope you guys have a great day. Stop comparing yourself and delete at least one social app today.