Don’t look at someone else’s watch

You are 30 years old. You don’t wake up in a house overlooking the sea, but in a cramped flat. You don’t drink coffee from a state-of-the-art espresso machine, but squeeze it in an aeropress like primitive man starting a fire. You don’t have wild morning sex with your beautiful beloved, but shower alone, brush your teeth and start another grey day. And you wonder how come your life is like this.
You wonder about it because, after all, other people’s lives don’t look like this, right? You open Instagram and see hundreds of smiling faces. As smiling as if they had just had a sweet latte on the terrace after an hour of erotic elation and were in no hurry to get to work. As if their morning is the perfect reflection of your dreams.You’ve been watching all these smiling people on social media since you were 18. They’ve been talented since childhood, built a thriving businesses by the age of 25, have movie star bodies and have completed a trip around the world by the age of 30.
You sit down at your desk, stare at your computer screen and the tasks piling up in your time management system. You breathe fast and nervously. I won’t make it today again, you think. I won’t make it, just like I haven’t made it with anything in my life. Everyone is so put together and I still have nothing of value
This is the internal dialogue of most of us, 30-yrs olds brought up and living in the digital age. Whether we admit it or not — these are the thoughts swirling around in our heads, even if we have finished a good degree, have a well-paid job and friends from the heart. One thing we overlook is that: we have our own time.
Social media is a wonderful invention, but it has taught us one destructive behaviour: looking at other people’s watches.
It occurs to us that on someone else’s watch time magically runs slower, giving them more opportunities and space to act.
Looking at someone else’s watch and achievements curves our optics. It distracts us from a fundamental truth: everyone has their own path. The path that people show on social media may or may not be true. It is not that important. What is important is that you have yours, which is unique. It’s probably not strewn with roses, but full of inner demons that you have to overcome in order to even know what you want and proceed to truly realise your goals
Remember, on your journey, that you have time. Time to make mistakes, time to struggle to achieve your own intentions, time to celebrate achievements. Don’t waste it looking at someone else’s watch.