I was talking earlier to a friend about benchmarking yourself against other people's journeys. It's one thing to be motivated or inspired by someone who exists in your orbit. I have had many people who would walk down the same streets or hallways as me, and seeing them do something I also wanted to do -- often with their encouragement, but not always -- would inspire me to do things I might have stalled on.
But it's another thing to watch someone's journey from a distance, and assume that you should also be doing the same things they're doing without knowing the details of their specific story. Even if the details are "they're more disciplined than you" or "you could maybe save and somehow get that too if it's really what you want," it's another thing to actually execute that.
There's a tension between "doing what you want" and "doing what looks good on paper, because it's expected of you." The older I get, the harder it can sometimes be to differentiate those things, because explaining your story to strangers can sometimes be difficult if you're not living in this binary way, doing things that are expected of you at particular milestones.
Part of the value of meeting people from far-flung places, and pushing myself into semi-awkward situations with strangers from conferences to other events -- even social media -- is getting bombarded with different perspectives on life and better understanding of the ways people's journies can diverge. If you meet enough people, especially from different stages of life, you learn that there's not "one way" to do anything.
But it's another thing to watch someone's journey from a distance, and assume that you should also be doing the same things they're doing without knowing the details of their specific story. Even if the details are "they're more disciplined than you" or "you could maybe save and somehow get that too if it's really what you want," it's another thing to actually execute that.
There's a tension between "doing what you want" and "doing what looks good on paper, because it's expected of you." The older I get, the harder it can sometimes be to differentiate those things, because explaining your story to strangers can sometimes be difficult if you're not living in this binary way, doing things that are expected of you at particular milestones.
Part of the value of meeting people from far-flung places, and pushing myself into semi-awkward situations with strangers from conferences to other events -- even social media -- is getting bombarded with different perspectives on life and better understanding of the ways people's journies can diverge. If you meet enough people, especially from different stages of life, you learn that there's not "one way" to do anything.
