Status is an old zero-sum game. To be the winner there has to be a loser – you have to put someone else down. “I am better than you.” It could be a title at work, or one you give yourself, or one you or others think is earned by owning or being something.
When you seek status you become angry because someone else is always going to be higher than you, and doing better than you. You are putting your happiness outside yourself and you can never be happy that way.
It doesn’t matter what everyone else is doing.
Instead, just make you proud and beat your own yesterday.
Ah! A trick title!
I love this so much. This is why I left social media years ago and have no desire to go back, it just felt like people seeking status over one another in the most unhealthy fashion. I don’t need any of it to live my life to the fullest, and I’m adopting the “beat your own yesterday” mentality 100%. Reading that line made something click for sure.