I can't stop comparing myself to other people

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I can't stop comparing myself to other people. Stuff like -

* People younger than me bought a house and I'm still renting
* People older than me own several houses because they started young
* A guy at work graduated university at 22 and I haven't even decided if I should go
* Another guy at work got very good grades without even trying and I struggled just to graduate high school
* My cousin got his first girlfriend when he was a teenager. I got my first girlfriend when I was 27.
* His current girlfriend looks like a supermodel. My girlfriends have all been obese.
My other cousin gets paid $70,000 per year. I only get paid $55,000 per year.
* Other people had supportive parents while my father was an alcoholic and my mother was a hoarder
* My friend studies after work every day. I don't because I'm always exhausted after work.
She's exhausted after work too but unlike me she has a spine
* AI struggle to meet my quota at work while other people exceed them
* I'm not as smart as other people
* I'm lazier than other people
* I'm worse with money than other people

You get the idea. It's making me miserable and it's killed my self-esteem. I don't even enjoy stuff I used to like doing. I can't relax or have fun without feeling guilty that I'm wasting time that should be spent doing something productive.

People tell me I should just stop comparing myself to other people. Just stop? That's like telling an alcoholic to just stop drinking.

Is there anything I can do, other than, just stop?

Think of it this way: despite an alcoholic dad and a hoarder mother, you're not doing too badly. $55,000 is not chump change. You live in a terraced apartment.

You're probably smarter than most people. Many times, "smarts" doesn't translate to school success. I'm not a dumb guy---but I was only a fair-to-good student when I was in high school. It's a b***h that, in Australia, academic success in high school enables you to take "plum" courses in University.

I've never known anybody who owns "several" houses. If somebody I know owns "several" houses, I would wonder where they got the money from. Perhaps some of the money was "ill-gotten."

Anyway---why would you want to own "several" houses, anyway? It's a pain in the butt to be a landlord.

Many times, people who are rich when they are young burn out, and lose their money because they wanted to live a flashy life. They have to "start over," say, at age 40.

I would figure it this way: I have done "better" than some people, yet "worse" than others. That's more true than you saying that you haven't succeeded.

It's a cool apartment and I don't want to leave it but I've felt bad about it since someone correctly pointed out that I'm spending most of my money on it. That apartment is preventing me from saving.

It's a cool application but it almost seems like a decadent thing, like I shouldn't have moved into such an expensive apartment. But I love living there too much to leave.

Early last year my grandfather offered to let me live in his house rent free for a few years so I could save for a house. I almost took him up on the offer. Almost. I should have. I regret not taking his offer.

I guess I'm losing my money because I wanted to live a flashy life with a terraced apartment.

I know people who earn as much as me yet are far more frugal than I am. By the time we're old they'll have a luxury retirement.

The tax laws in Australia are dodgy as hell. They allow land lords to socialise their losses while they're still paying the mortgages on their investment properties, effectively getting their tenant to pay for the whole house for them.

The recent rise in housing prices convinced everyone it's a good investment, which made lots of people buy investment properties, which pushed the prices up even further. I hope this bubble bursts and ruins a few land barrons.

Don't let people tell you Australia is some left wing utopia. It's not. Don't get me started on the flaws in our Medicare system.

You're comparisons are focused on those who you perceive are more successful than you. It's all relative though, nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors, you don't know that any of these people are actually happier than you or have a better quality of life. Living is not easy for anyone, everyone could be having a bad day today...

You could try to be mindful of the times when you come across someone who makes you feel fortunate for what you have going for you, and remember these times when your self-esteem takes a hit from someone else's success.

There's always going to be someone more successful than you, unless you become the Emperor of the Universe, and even then you'll probably have to answer to a committee.

Making $55,000 sounds like a dream come true. Even with my multiple post secondary degrees and diplomas I make about $41,000 CAD which is about $41,500 in your money. You sound like you are doing better than most 27 year olds I know. I know I used to and was always compared to my brother: a highly successful Engineer who had money and women sticking to him like a magnet. Let's just say things are not going as well for him now.

You are right about the renting thing: if I had my time back I would have bought a small townhouse rather than rent when I was on my own. I don't know how things are there but here property values keep rising and rising to almost absurd levels: this is the sole reason my wife is FAR better off financially: she had all that equity built up while I had nothing to show for it.

Best thing to do is realize you are doing pretty darn good and these people who appear to be doing better probably aren't. My younger cousin is close to her second divorce already for example.

Exactly. Mathametically it makes sense that I shouldn't be renting but I screwed up. The longer I'm trapped in this mess the more money I'll lose. It's so much easier for people who don't have horrible parents because living at home is a good way for them to save.

I just want to get the money to make an offer to the owner of my apartment. Or maybe buy some other apartment. I like apartments because being high up makes me feel isolated from the harsh world. Having a few stories between me and ground level really makes me feel safer, especially after I got $20,000 worth of stuff burgled when I was living in a ground level unit.

Trying to save for a house after that happened is really bad timing because it means I can't buy my stuff back, even though I was able to afford it before. I can't even afford that orthodontic surgury that my health insurance won't cover. Using your house as leverage to buy more houses helps people take advantage of exponential growth. I won't live long enough to get any exponential growth. A year in my twenties is worth five years of my fifties and I'm all out of twenties.

I'm buying my apartment right now, for someone else. I'm paying his mortage on this apartment right now. The price will go up. For some unfortunate reason this neighborhood is getting a reputation as a well-to-do area. That never helps.

I know the property values can't keep rising forever but even when they come down again that will just cause the interest rates to increase so the total payments on my mortgage will be no less.

I've really screwed up and that means I can never become a millionaire

Do you even know what you want from life? Is alexithymia a factor in this? You seem to be stuck dithering over a lot of questions, which makes me wonder whether you are at all aware of how you feel about things. I assume you would find it easier to make decisions if you were more self-aware.

Hi,

You are a very successful person judging by the post. If I was to compare myself with you then it's night and day difference. I went to high school and college (a sort of college for kids with low grades), it was called B-Tech technical college and I sort of learnt Visual Basic although I dropped out My brainpower for learning didn't regulate itself when I was 16 at college. High school I was in all the low grade classes, not for want of lazyness but I simply didn't have the brains to be academic (would love to have got As in classes). If you haven't got it it simply won't materialize. I have no job, that is normal working class people 9 till 5, although I do occasionally wash up dishes outside of my estate in a town called Lewis. I did have a cleaning job for a lady up the road although someone took my place, I was rick-rolled so to say.

I would say you're doing fine! I have constant anxiety which makes it difficult to go out and about, especially into town. I lost all my friends too, they moved on, got married and had better jobs (maybe) I wouldn't know if It was created by my addictions, it's just they had bigger fish to fry.

Never compare yourself to others. Maybe only with your girlfriend, to see who can out compete each other with love.

When I was your age I was not only dateless and kissless, but I just moved out on my own (for the very first time). I only got into the property ladder at 33 when I got married and only recently bought my first house (mostly from my wife's incredible financial responsibility). Furthermore, that is FAR from unusual were I live: my wife was 32 and my last GF was 31 before they moved out on their own.

If you want to compare yourself to someone, compare it to me (a fellow retro gamer too!). I could still be doing better now but I am light years ahead of where I was 5 years ago! Don't take my word for it: look at my posts from when I first joined here. You are on the right track even if you are a fellow late bloomer.

Same here. I even posted about it on Reddit not too long ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/depression/com ... er_people/

I sometimes, erroneously, feel other people are more of the following than me:

mature
responsible
good-looking
getting it
empathetic
non-stereotypical
not awkward
graceful
intuitive
book and street smart
loving
caring
observant
independent
direct and honest
cutting-to-the-chase, no-bullshit
tactful


Even the good things that seem like opposites I think I have neither side of.

Stop comparing yourself to people around you, it's a guaranteed way to ruin your mental health. Besides, its not realistic to compare yourself to the general population if you have an Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Your doing okay, you have a job and earn enough money to live independently if managed sensibly.

Compared to me you are miles ahead, you date, work full time....I better stop comparing, its making me look bad!

Its hard to do, I been through it myself, constantly missing so called milestones in my life.....people around me having relationships, getting married, having kids.....just having the stereotypical "normal" life. The thing is, it has its own sets of challenges and its not the perfect life it appears to be.

So I have learned to let go of chasing what seems to me to be impossible.

Build on yourself instead of comparing yourself with other people. You have talents and abilities. You have to recognize those abilities, and work on those abilities. Not work on your weakness and flaws, but work on your strengths.

I can't stop comparing myself to other people. Stuff like -

* People younger than me bought a house and I'm still renting
* People older than me own several houses because they started young
* A guy at work graduated university at 22 and I haven't even decided if I should go
* Another guy at work got very good grades without even trying and I struggled just to graduate high school
* My cousin got his first girlfriend when he was a teenager. I got my first girlfriend when I was 27.
* His current girlfriend looks like a supermodel. My girlfriends have all been obese.
My other cousin gets paid $70,000 per year. I only get paid $55,000 per year.
* Other people had supportive parents while my father was an alcoholic and my mother was a hoarder
* My friend studies after work every day. I don't because I'm always exhausted after work.
She's exhausted after work too but unlike me she has a spine
* AI struggle to meet my quota at work while other people exceed them
* I'm not as smart as other people
* I'm lazier than other people
* I'm worse with money than other people

You get the idea. It's making me miserable and it's killed my self-esteem. I don't even enjoy stuff I used to like doing. I can't relax or have fun without feeling guilty that I'm wasting time that should be spent doing something productive.

People tell me I should just stop comparing myself to other people. Just stop? That's like telling an alcoholic to just stop drinking.

Is there anything I can do, other than, just stop?

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there might be something you can do to stop, but not that i know of. seriously i have the same problem.

how about a mantra? lately, i have been telling myself "here and now" as a mantra. b/c i keep obsessing about social rejection and failure from the distant past.

however, since you do keep comparing yourself to other people:

(1) i am 34 and do not have a job. only had minimum wage jobs in the past. and got fired.
(2) never had a girlfriend. or boyfriend. zero. no attractive ones. no obese ones.
(3) some IQ test subscores were pretty low. likewise, the theory of 7 intelligences. there are a lot of things that i am really bad at. that i wish i were better at. but things do not come second nature. or first nature.
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you have no control over your parent's alcohol consumption. if someone is a hoarder, that is not your fault. and there is nothing you can do about it. you are not a professional counselor. especially since they are your parents. maybe they had those problems before you were born.

besides, plenty of people are alcoholics. big deal.

many of us asians, including my precious lil "parents" and me, are bad at drinking alcohol.

the world contains 7.5 billion people. certainly, there will be some that are more successful than you, in some ways, that are younger than you.

even the most successful person in the world, is only the most successful at that moment.

there are different methods of defining and measuring success.

earning money is part of success. but success contains other parts too.

there is more to "life" than success.

many people earn less money than you. if you define success financially.

some people graduate university and work as baristas at Starbucks. after the 2008 recession, there were a lot of people with Bachelors degrees that worked at jobs that did not require degrees. some articles claim that 50% of people with Bachelors degrees worked in jobs that did not require degrees. among recent graduates.

many people that graduate college have a lot of school loans. and they default.

many people drop out or flunk out of college.

many people succeed without college. for example, Steve Jobs.

peoples' physical appearances are superficial, materialistic, and deceiving.

not everyone studies after work. that is not necessary.

different people are good at different things.

job skills are not moral qualities.

some people are smarter than you. some people are not as smart as you.

my sister's friend's brother got a MS in Electrical Engineering. then he worked as an electrical engineer. when he was 33 he dropped dead.

so, being academically smart. all things being equal, is better than being academically stupid.

but how much better?

and, there's more to life than academic intelligence.

you can read books about how to handle your money better. you can improve on it.

you can't measure laziness.

if you want to be more hard working, you have to find your motivation. what you want to do. and get efficient at doing it.

but, since you do have a job. presumably full time, you work harder than many people.

such as myself.



plenty of people nowadays have no jobs. or just work part time. and that is not necessarily b/c they did something wrong.

No. I don't even know what I want from life. I mean, I know what I want right now but my goals are always shifting too fast for me to meet them.

This week I was obsessed with buying a house.
Last week I was obsessed with getting a university degree.
The week before that I was obsessed with being the most productive at work.
The week before that I was obssessed with getting another girlfriend.

Ten years ago I had goals that were diametrically opposed to my current goals. Goals like not working, not studying and living a NEET life of leisure.

I achieved that goal for a few years but it didn't help me with my current goals. If my goals could be unchanging for years at a time, I could probably achieve them during that time.

If I had my current goals since my teens and they didn't change, I'd probably have achieved them at a normal age. Part of the reason I can't achieve my goals at a normal age is because I don't even think of them at a normal age.

From the time I decided to get a full salary job to the time I got it was a year and a half. That's pretty fast for someone with no qualifications. Pretty fast except that I started when I was 25 and 10 months so I was 27 when I finished.

In some ways my slowness isn't from taking a very long time to do things but from being older when I have the desire to start doing something. I now understand that hard work is rewarding. I'm sure a lot of people would agree with me. Except that I didn't think thta until I was 25 and 10 months. Most people start thinking that during the last year or two of high school.

Plenty of teenagers apply themselves really hard to their studies. When I was a teenager I was applying for a pension.

In otherwords, the level of maturity I've reached now is the same level other people reach during their teens.

True but some of the people I compare myself to who are doing better than me also have Autism Spectrum Disorder.



Yeah but it's making me look pretty good. I better stop comparing before I get a big head. Joking.

Seriously, I better stop comparing myself in general. I want to stop but it's hard.