Choose Your Life
If you could switch lives with someone, would you? Truly? If you zoomed out, had clear perspective and saw that individual’s life as a whole, versus the small snippet you see and pieces you create and fill in… would you still trade your life for theirs?
It is okay if the answer is yes. It just means there is room in your life to dream and create and live.
I am not a fan of most trends floating around social media, but I love the trend about romanticising your own life. I think it has the potential to completely switch our world view.
“Comparison is the thief of joy.” “Comparison is a trap.”... These are mantras we’ve all heard regularly but that is because they could not be more true.
It is easy to forget that you don’t even know what you are comparing yourself to.
We can often see a picture of someone in a beautiful location, eating a perfectly curated meal, in their beautiful outfit, in the sunshine, laughing. It is easy to look at that picture and want what they have. But really, that same image can easily be your reality, too. You could be sitting in a garden, eating a beautiful meal, and still be comparing yourself to them, thinking that what is on their side of the camera is better - simply because you’re not letting yourself see the beauty right in front of you.
Or maybe it seems clear to you that that picture is better than your current reality - maybe you’re in your sweatpants feeling sick and alone. Either way, we are choosing to see each image with different eyes, versus choosing to see both the picture and our reality from the same perspective. We choose not to see that they also have moments when they are in their sweatpants feeling sick. We choose not to see that they may have been feeling extremely anxious while that picture was being taken and are feeling miserable the whole time. We choose not to see that we could romanticise the heck out of our lives so that that image is our reality, too.
Ultimately, we are not envious of how the picture looks, we are envious of what we perceive that picture to mean. This could be different for everyone - success, love, joy, popularity…
But our society has become so image obsessed, it’s easy to forget that what actually leaves us fulfilled by life is not about how the picture looks, it is about how the moment feels. And we have the capacity to create a life for ourselves that leaves us feeling like our life is magic. Our life is one worth choosing.
When we allow ourselves to get swept up in wanting someone else’s life, we are putting our life in their hands. Don’t let other people decide how your life should look. Don’t let others’ lives lead you to forget that you have a life of your own.
Choose for yourself to dedicate yourself to your own life and how you want your life to feel.
Use your jealousy and envy as inspiration - it is your intuition showing you things that you want. We can choose to be happy for others’ happiness and success instead of resentful and angry. We can use that as information and be excited that they have given us more clarity on how we want our lives to be. Then it is our choice to take steps to get our lives to where we want them to be.
It starts by finding joy with where you’re at in life right now, no matter how far away you feel from your dreams.
It starts by romanticising your life, seeing your life with new eyes, finding magic in the mundane.
It starts by choosing your life, you were placed in it for a reason - who are you to waste it?
Choose to live your life and create your dream from there.
Choose to love the life you live. Choose to live the life that is yours.
