Hello again
Hello, all I know it's been a while since my last post. I've been busy with work and just life stuff. And if you're wondering, yes that does include fighting for toilet paper and hiding from ol' COVID. Not going to lie the whole thing was kinda chill at the beginning. I'm super introverted so the idea of drastically limiting my daily interaction with people seemed like a dream come true. Now, after about a month and a half into isolation, I can't say I'm as relaxed. I think the biggest thing that stresses me out is the state of the economy. I'd cry real tears if I lost my job considering I JUST got it, and I feel I've come such a long way. Another thing that worries me is that a lot of folks in my family have asthma, and I don't think COVID would be anything nice for them to catch. As the days move on, my anxiety increases, and I'll tell you what doesn't help. SOCIAL MEDIA. Every day it seems like there's some new breaking news story grimmer than the last. It's gotten to the point to where I have to ignore anything COVID related for my sanity. On top of this, lately I've been suffering from this obligation to productivity. Like yes I'm still working so I don't have crazy free time, but I do have fewer distractions and because I'm not commuting a little more free time. What I'm finding out is that, that feeling is preventing me from taking mental breaks, which is causing me to run myself ragged. It's usually going to work, do chores in the house, work on the app, do some research, sleep, repeat. Anytime I try to give myself a break I always assume that someone else is taking advantage of this time and while they're doing that I'm falling behind. That point kinda leads me to the topic of discussion.
Social Woes
So for me personally social media is not a good place. With all this additional time at home, it's easier to spend a little more time on the twitters, Instagrams, and Facebooks of the world. What I've been finding lately is that I leave those sites feeling terrible about myself. It's really hard to explain but I've realized it boils down to me always comparing what I have to what someone else has. I was doing some reading last night and I came across a couple of articles that were talking about why people often compare themselves to others, and tips and tricks on how to not fall into that trap. I wanted to talk about a couple of things that stood out to me with the hope that anyone having this same issue may find some value.
We often make unfair comparisons
Something I came across was the idea that we tend to compare the worst characteristics of ourselves with the best characteristics of others. For instance, I may be just getting into video editing, but I would still compare my little 3-minute video I worked 4 hours on to someone's career-defining masterpiece they worked years on. It easy to focus on the result and not see all the work and dedication that went into it. It's not fair for me to compare my basketball skills to Lebron James, just like it's not fair for Lebron James to compare his coding skills to mine. We all have different sets of strengths and weaknesses that enable us to be better at certain things than others. It's really easy to see someone doing well for themselves and immediately think your doing something wrong, or are worthless (for me anyway). Lately when I have those feelings, I try to keep this in mind and remind myself that my story is different from theirs.
Someone is going to be better than you
No matter what you do, there is going to be someone who can do it better. Because of this I've been trying to focus on improving myself. I've been trying to make an app during my quarantine life, and I've been going at it for about a month now without much progress. On the flip side there are people out there who have already designed and coded full-fledged COVID 19 apps. Now, I could be bummed out about that and get down on myself for being a bad programmer, but I've been trying to look at it as motivation and have the fact that people are innovating like crazy at this time propel me to create something cool. Like isn't a competition, social media makes it seem that way. Don't buy into that. I feel like all you can do in life is wake up every morning and put your best foot forward.
Be your benchmark
I loved this concept the most. Basically if you're going to compare yourself to someone, compare yourself to you. I feel like the name of the game in progress, and if you can say that you're better than the person you were yesterday than you're doing fine. I think about myself in high school when I first started programming, and then think about myself now programming for a living. I'm kinda kicking myself in the butt for not noticing how far I've come sooner. I've been robbing myself of the satisfaction that comes with knowing you're headed in a good direction. I think failing to acknowledge baby steps has also at times killed my motivation. It's hard to act on dreams and goals if as far as your concerned you haven't made any progress. I think I need to be celebrating myself more often.
In the end
Comparing myself to others has done no good for me in my life. It keeps me from being happy, and productive as well as causes me to be resentful of others. I think the first step is acknowledging the issue and then from there being conscious of your triggers and behaviors. In the couple of weeks that I've been working on these things I already feel much better, and have found I've been a little more productive. Hopefully with a little more time and effort I can turn some of these changes into habits.
