The age comparison trap

I’m 40.

This is true, but it’s not why I began an email this way.

I’m demonstrating how seemingly 80% of all Twitter threads begin these days.

It’s a bit monotonous.

But these thread articles often do well.

Because age grabs people’s eye.

Their ego mind is instantly triggered, setting off internal questions like:

‘What does this guy have that I haven’t?’

‘Will this guy show me whether I’m still behind or way ahead of the crowd?’

I have often measured my progress against others because deep down I harboured insecurities about my ‘progress’ in life.

It made me frequently upset.

‘Other humans were ahead of me.’

‘I wasn’t as far along as I ‘should’ be,’ etc.

Cue hours of sulking and rumination.

The problem is that we derive far too much meaning from far too narrow a range of data.

Someone younger than you is making more money than you.

Big whoop.

But have they travelled as far and wide as you?

Have they experienced and worked through grief as you have?

Can they dance the Macarena when no one’s watching like you can?

Have they developed emotional intelligence like you have?

Suffering is almost always an ego thing. And it happens when our reality falls short of the expectations we have created.

Egos don’t like falling short.

But we only ‘fall short’ when we allow our thinking to go that way.

The solution I learned was to find more evidence to support my multi-faceted success.

I didn’t start making up nonsense. I got rational. All the evidence was there to see.

I didn’t need to have jumped through all the societally-promoted hoops to ‘succeed.’

I was successful in my own way, and I had plenty of evidence to support it - none of which was anyone else’s concern.

If you want help developing a more effortlessly optimistic mind, you might like my course, Untethered Mind.

The course guides you through several steps that show you how to reduce overthinking so your stress reduces significantly in less than a few days.

Learn more here.

Alex