Social media has made us stalkers. It’s now easy to know what others are doing.

The obvious downside is you can’t help but compare. Those you see doing greater things can make you feel envious. You feel bad for being small and not successful.

Keep doing that and you’ll end up anxious — of course, you want to keep up.

I’ve fallen into this trap many times. But I’m also lucky enough to get out of it. Maybe for others, it’s almost impossible. For some reason, they just can’t.

I’ve talked about this in the past and one thing I did practice (a lot) is to treat others as “myself”.

That musician who has just released a masterpiece album… well, that’s me. That newbie writer who wrote and published a mind-bending sci-fi series… well, that’s also me.

The idea is to imagine that all these challenges that come when pursuing dreams… they’ve experienced them too. They had their share of sleepless nights. They felt envious of others’ success. They were broke at some point. They were rejected and ridiculed over and over again.

And now, they made it. They finally finished and shipped their creations. So yes they deserve any praise and accolades.

If you think like that, you’ll realize that there’s no point being envious.

Because you are like them, too. In fact, you are them.

The only difference is that they kept going and finished what they intended to finish.

There’s no point to feel sad or left behind. Because these people — they are the evidence that whatever you’re trying to achieve is always possible. If anything, they should serve as inspirations.