Do you ever catch yourself looking at someone else wishing your life looked like theirs? It’s so easy, especially in today’s age of social media, to believe someone else has it easier than us. Whether you are comparing yourself to people you know in real life, or scrolling on Instagram and watching people you don’t know, focusing on circumstances that are not ours is the best way to feel perpetually disappointed with ourselves. Life isn’t black and white and nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems from the outside.

It’s said that comparison is the thief of joy, and I feel as if this is true when it comes to our health. It’s impossible to believe we’ll all be the same when we’re all given a different hand to play in this life. We all are born into different families, have different amounts of money and resources, and have different family backgrounds. 

We all live in different parts of the world, grew up in different times in history, and our parents have different careers, which all shape not only the hand we’ve been given but also our perspective of the world. 

When it comes to our health, it’s easy to look at someone who is skinny and think “it must be nice” or assume it’s easy for them to stay that way. It’s also easy to look at someone who has excess body fat, judge them, and think they’re doing it all wrong. But how can we jump to such conclusions from the outside? 

How can we wish we had someone else’s life just from the little bit we can see and the assumptions we make?

Living a healthy life requires us to play the hand we’ve been given. Every moment we spend wishing we had someone else’s life is time spent remaining stuck where we are. Alternatively, every moment we invest in focusing on ourselves and choosing the hard option now gives us the return of a better life in the future. 

Practically, this looks like us taking time for serious self-reflection, acknowledging where we currently are and how this compares to our ideal version of health for ourselves. From there, we can reverse-engineer our goal to lay out the steps we need to take to get there. 

It’s okay to feel disappointed about where we are currently at, but sitting back, playing the victim, and wishing we were someone else will never help us make progress. 

Our circumstances are perfectly suited to bring out our unique strengths in this life, and it requires work to be able to see our situations as a blessing rather than a curse. We always have the option to make the most of our lives, and we also have the free will to let life happen to us. 

Living a healthy life, whatever that means to you, requires us to take control of our actions and do the work of investing in the hard option now rather than hoping we get the outcome we desire. 

What we focus on in our life is what grows, so take time to embody gratitude for what you have and where you are so you can then use that momentum to keep moving toward the state of health you desire.