There are many human tendencies I wish I didn’t have.  Comparing myself to others, jealousy, and fomo are at the top of that list.

On a beautiful 74 degree day in the first week of this brand new decade on an 11+ mile hike in Yang Ming Shan National Park with nine 65+ year olds (most were 70+), I was annoyed for being a weak human feeling all three of these.

This meetup happens almost every Friday around 8am at one of the nicest Starbucks I’ve ever seen at the base of Yang Ming Shan.  (Shan, 山 = mountain in Chinese.) Sometimes 3 people make it. Sometimes 20.

They grab coffee, sit in the outdoor courtyard, eat breakfast, and catchup on life as they wait for everyone to arrive.  Together, they hike anywhere from 10-15 miles, usually with a break for a delicious lunch at the same family-run, mountainside restaurant that costs about 200NT ($6 USD) per person.  Sometimes when they’re done, they go for a soak at one of the local hot spring baths that come with a side of dinner.

I was amongst great company with interesting stories, ate great locally grown food, and saw great views of Taipei.  Life was great, great, and more great.

But even doing activities as enjoyable as these and feeling as great about life as I felt, I still found myself comparing my stamina to people twice my age.  Priding myself in being first in our caravan and not being out of breath despite having no cardio practice.

It’s embarrassing, but it feels good to be better than others.  Even at utterly inconsequential and uncompetitive activities. It’s a confidence boost in the moment, but it isn’t a sustainable source of value.

Then jealousy.

I was a guest in a beautiful community of retirees enjoying their retirement in an active, healthy, and rewarding way that fostered friendship, exercise, appreciation of nature, and being present.  I was so happy for them, but so incredibly jealous.

I wanted their freedom to plan their time however they wanted and pursue hobbies they enjoyed.  I wanted to belong to such a supportive community with their kind of camaraderie. I wanted to be outside and in nature as often as they were.  I wanted to be that financially secure to not have to worry about making money again.

The fomo part is standard.  I had to meet my mom so, couldn’t continue on the last mile of the hike to the hot spring restaurant combo and cheers the day with my new friends.  Yes, first world problems, but I, like many of you, want it all!

Someone told me I was in better shape than them… pride.

Someone congratulated me for starting a business and told me about theirs… pride and jealousy.

Someone just doubled their salary… jealousy.

Someone’s going to Belize to get scuba certified… jealousy and fomo.

Someone’s pushing their baby around in the middle of the day… more jealousy and fomo.

These are all annoying feelings to feel when we want to be better humans who are above petty thoughts.  BUT they’re a great source of information if we choose to use them as such.

They show us we’re flawed and are clues/prompts to consider why feeling “better than” was valuable in the first place, what exactly we want that made us jealous of someone else or feel fomo, and what we might be feeling deficient about that made those feelings viable in the first place.  If you think you're clear on what you want, they can still help validate or test your hypotheses.

There are a lot of ways to identify what we want from our career and life, but we often lean into the positive, dreamy, and aspirational means.  Our hopes, passionate interests, purpose and values, vision boards, etc.

Those are important, but the not-so-fun (yet very normal) feelings we berate ourselves for are often overlooked as informative and pushed to the side because they’re uncomfortable.  If we can sit with the discomfort just a little longer, accept that this is normal human behavior, and tap into our resourcefulness, we can turn those annoying feelings into insightful fuel.

We experience them regardless so, taking advantage of them seems far more productive than fighting their existence and thus, ourselves in the process.

Much Love,

Pam

PS… One thing to keep in mind, the problem with collecting inputs is that they can get overwhelming when we start to think about ALL the things we want in ALL the aspects of life and how hard it’s going to be to get ALL of them.  Our brain can only think, organize, and process so much before it’s overloaded. So, write things down, organize your thoughts, and process them coherently outside of your head. We do it at work all the time. So, we can certainly do it for ourselves as well.