A Letter to My Younger Self

Dear nineteen-year-old Kellie,

I know you’ve been going through a lot lately.  You’ve failed all your classes at university, quit your soldiers training in the Reserve Forces, and now you’re hiding away in the basement of your host family’s house in France crying your heart out.  I know it hurts to fail.  I know you want to give up and go home, but even home doesn’t understand you, nor have they a place for you.

I see and feel your pain.  You have responsibility for someone else’s kids and you’re trying to make it in a culture you don’t understand.  You cringe when your host mother reprimands you countless times a day for the smallest mistakes you make.  You can never predict when she’s not going to like something you’re doing.  She’s your best friend one moment and your enemy the next.  Your only escape is either the basement in the laundry room, home to cement walls to bruise your knuckles on, or the bedroom where you lock yourself in to drench your pillow in tears.

How Can We Stop Comparing Ourselves to Others?

The other day, I read an article by Claire Musters called "Don't Compare."  She said that comparing herself to others was something she did "throughout" her life.  So have I, and so have millions of others.  This got me thinking:  what self help is out there to solve this problem?  A simple Google search revealed a whole lot.  The expression "beating a dead horse" doesn't even compare to how many times people have talked about this subject.  There are so many articles written by people who have all experienced the same thing and how they overcame it.  You could spend your entire life reading them.

So why do I bring it up?  It's because despite all the help that's out there, people still struggle with comparing themselves to others.  Some people don't notice it.  For others, it's a glaring issue.  Maybe we're trying too hard.  Perhaps we need to look at it from a different angle.