Being on vacation gives me a lot of (maybe too much) time to think. I think about different kinds of stuff that often confuse me, and right now, I'm especially thinking about people's behaviour, now that I'm in one of the most conservative places I know. There is one thing that I have been thinking about more frequently the past several months. It has something to do with how people react to and treat each other.
I never quite understood why people often choose to see someone better than them as an opponent, instead of trying to learn from them. Maybe it is not a decision they make consciously, but rather without being aware of it. Like an instinctive protection mechanism. Like this person is a threat to them, and their acceptance and love received by friends, a threat at work or even more ridiculous: a threat to their self-esteem. Why I find it ridiculous, you ask?
Well, if you think about it, there are about seven billion people in the world today. The chances that there are some people out there who are either funnier, more intelligent, prettier or whatsoever than you, are pretty high. So why would you be bothered by the coincidence that you actually know some of them? However, there is something you probably haven’t thought about before,- because on the contrary, chances are as high that you are one of those people to someone else.
On the other hand, it seems just as ridiculous to be bothered or feel threatened by a person better at something than you, instead of admiring them. We all used to have idols to look up to, and you’re probably a liar if you claim every one of them to have been a celebrity. Because they were not-, how many of your former idols were actually regular people, far away from being famous? Their personalities, talents and way of being influenced who we happened to become ourselves. When did we stop to feel the urge to expand ourselves by finding inspiration in others?
Life is hard for everyone. Try not to make it harder by being competitive and destructive instead of supportive. Just think about how far we could come by strengthening each other, by helping each other to become the best version of ourselves. At the end of the day, we all reach out for the same goal, driving along the same road, on the same broken bridge. Why not fix this bridge and travel together?
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