Isn’t it funny how we compare ourselves for self-satisfaction or maybe competition with others. During a busy week at school, you can hear any kid (myself included) going up and down the halls to and from classes complaining to friends and acquaintances alike, “I was so busy last night, you have no idea.”

The last part, an unneeded appendage to the complete substance of the sentence, you have no idea, says it all. It says “I am so busy and so important, you wouldn’t know what that is like.” There are two parts to this post. First off, and maybe onc sentence is all that needs to be thought about, is, why do people need to compare themselves to others just to make themselves feel important?

The next part of the post is something I have observed, and if you think about it, I’m sure you have as well.

• “I was so busy last night, I spent 3 hours on this project.”
• “Yeah? Well on top of that project I had an hour of math.”
• “But did you have to take your brother to soccer practice as well?”

For some reason, people seem to base a level of their success on how busy they are. Or rather, they seem to base their own success on how stressed out they are. It is really a strange method of comparing yourself to others, but I am sure most people (again myself included) think this way at least a little bit of the time.

I’m not saying it is a bad thing at all though. I think competition is good, its one thing that helps people strive to for invention and innovations. Apple vs. Microsoft? Well clearly Apple doesn’t really have any competition anymore… but competition drives industry.

However, what brought this topic to my head to write about was a “This I Believe” podcast from NPR. I was catching up on some old episodes and found this one. It is titled: “Leaving Work to Watch the Sunset” by Laurie Granieri. I will include a link below. It is an interesting episode indeed.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87777150