So many of those at the top are miserable.
Take any discipline, and there's a rat race for it: sports, music, your workplace, education, money, possessions, and so on. You can fill in the blank for yourself.
And whether we know it or not, we truly believe deep down that our rank in said discipline is the value of our existence. We get our worth from it. Or maybe we believe that someday we will get that job, make enough money, have enough status. Suddenly, we are enslaved to a rat race — doing anything we can to prove ourselves, to end up unfulfilled and unsatisfied. And I'm pretty convinced it's killing the true life we were meant to find of joy, contentment, and peace.
I had a discussion with someone who has a successful touring rock band. He's traveled the nation for music and is signed to a label. If you've known my past personally, you know that I would be envious. That's the position I've wanted to be in as far back as I can remember - since being inspired by old Creed music videos when I was 7.
"I wake up every day feeling like a failure," he expressed to me. I sat in silence, puzzled. "I know you're probably looking at me wanting to be where I am," he said honestly, "but I'm looking at those topping the charts, those with more fans and followers, and those writing more impressive music than me, and I feel like I'm in my thirties now with nothing to show for what I've done."
What an explosion of truth. A deep reality of our humanity.
After winning three Super Bowl championship rings in 2005, Tom Brady asked in a 60 Minutes interview: "Why do I have three Super Bowl rings, and still think there's something greater out there for me? I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think: God, it's gotta be more than this."
You see, "success" is relative. It's a moving target. If our human nature tells us anything, it's that we won't ever be "enough." There will always be someone better than you, smarter than you, more educated and impressive than you. And the sooner we figure that out, the freer we will be to live.
Stop trying to prove yourself. You are already enough.
I am slowly discovering the source of my lasting contentment, peace, and joy — but it probably won't be the rat race I have been enslaved to for so many years. Some live their whole lives believing they will "arrive" — wherever that is for them, to find that it never comes. What a tragedy.
You are unique, and I truly think more and more each day that the best thing to fight against comparison is to just exist.