How can I stop comparing myself to someone who looks better than me in all level?

You have to let go of the instinct to compete. You will know when you have done it when you no longer feel intimidated or jealous but are happy for that person. You will stop comparing yourself at that point. It will take some time to mature into this and many people never do.

I agree it’s hard to be friends with someone like that, or to have that kind of person in your family who you feel inferior to.

It’s easy for me to say there will always be someone else who is smarter than you, prettier than you, has a better body than you, has better clothes than you, more popular than you. You know that. My advice is try not to think of this person other than what you have to (like when you see her, of course you have to think of her because she’s with you). Try to concentrate on yourself. You’re trying so hard, you’re doing so well, you’re working your ass off, your looks are unique, you have your own style. What she’s going for is not for everyone. Not everyone wants a YouTube channel with one million subscribers as their goal. You have what you have, and you are you. You’re great, and I’m sure she’s great too. Everyone is different, everyone is unique.

My daughter has twin friends and the mother doesn’t brag, but she will tell me about how they’re on the soccer team, basketball team, volleyball team, they’re carving pumpkins, they’re baking with the apples they just picked, they do the Science project with no help from parents, they’re going to this college readiness program, they’re designing their own Halloween costumes, etc. My daughter, on the other hand, is more laid back. I love her, she’s unique. She’s not like her twin friends at all. She probably will never be. She doesn’t want to be. She is who she is and they are who they are.

The world is a big place and there’s room for all different types of people.

Desiderata
A frequent source of reassurance and advice

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Can you stay away from her? That would be the most practical solution.

The Serenity Prayer from Alcohol Anonymous has this gem:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference”

I think that’s a universally valuable maxim (religion aside). Focus on what you can control. That’s all you can ever do. If you want to be a better artist, practice even harder. Period. You can’t control how naturally talented other people are, nor should you care.

Also, be aware that people that appear “perfect” on the outside, often are train-wrecks on the inside.

I’m not buying the “silver spoon” element to your story, you show zero evidence of that.
This girl appears to be applying herself & excelling in what she does, a perfectly healthy way to live her life, she should be applauded for making the best for herself. Instead you appear to despise her which just makes you come across as bitter & somewhat ignorant.

@ucme I’m so sorry that I come off as bitter and ignorant. That’s exactly my problem. I know I should celebrate her, but my heart refuses to. I’m asking Fluther how I can just turn off my brain.

@Mimishu1995 You see, that’s another thing, you have no reason to apologise to me, nor should you feel obliged to admire this girl or much of anything really.
Maybe you loathe her success because you crave that for yourself, that’s okay though we all have a steep learning curve to navigate at certain stages of our lives, that’s how we progress, build character.

I suggest, for what it’s worth, you concentrate/focus on your own path & pay no mind to some girl you class as some sort of elite level academic, embrace what you are & i’m guessing you won’t be disappointed…happy trails.

No one has a perfect life. You may think from afar that the person is beautiful and lucky and has no worries, but that most likely is not true. My husband and I when we were younger looked like the perfect couple. We were young, attractive, careers, nice house (at some points we had a house and a condo) fancy cars, and we had horrible medical problems we dealt with that most people knew nothing about, and the disappointment of failed pregnancies. We couldn’t have sex for months at a time. I had terrible anxiety at that time that pretty much no one was aware of. Don’t idealize people. Don’t compete. You never really know another person’s life. Focus on yourself, and what you want. If someone else has some things you want, then by all means find out how they accomplished it. Share information with each other so everyone can live better lives, but don’t try to be exactly the same, you take the bits and pieces that fit you best.

Maybe life was easier for her for a while, but often those who struggle as young people wind up way more fantastic in the adulthood than those who skated through for years. Persistence matters. Just keep on your own path, and learn what you can to better yourself without comparing to others. You are idealizing her, when idealizing usually is not reality.

It is easy,*When you remember you are comparing YOUR insides with others’ OUTSIDES! And so important to remember * We wouldn’t worry about what others think of us IF we knew how seldom they did!:)

STOP focusing on ALL the things that you perceive she has!!! START focusing on the things that YOU do have!!!

What you perceive as ALL the easy things that she has might feel like a curse to her!!! You have NO control over what her family is willing to give to her just like she has NO control over how little your family gives to you. In comparison, it sounds like her family has MORE to freely give & maybe they give it to her to make themselves look good to their friends. IF your family has less to give & still give you whatever they can, maybe they give it out of selfless love & NOT their own need to look impressive to the community!!!

Assuming that you know who Kim Kardashian is…most women in the US desire to be her & have ALL the things that she just takes for granted. She says that she’s an ugly toad & she HATES the way she looks. Most men lust after her & she’s regularly paid $400K to appear in shopping center parking lots. She wants for anything, she sends her assistant out to get it for her. It appears that everything has been handed to her on a silver platter yet she speaks of how HARD she has worked for most of her money. She has so much that she can’t go on vacation without some thug trying to kidnap her & steal her jewelry. Maybe you would find that an easy life; however, I see it as a curse. I wouldn’t want to change places with her in exchange for EVERY dime that she has!!!

In growing up, my brother was always complaining how hard he had to work to get decent grades in school & I never studied & got mostly A’s with an occasional B. What he didn’t see what that I listened intently in class while the teacher explained, took good notes, & EVERY day I read & reread those notes to lock it in my brain. Then the night before any exams, I’d reread my notes once again to refresh my memory. During this same time, he was out playing & trying to cram the info on the very last night. In MY eyes, I was studying harder than he was; yet in HIS eyes, I was breezing through school.

Maybe her ease of learning is simply a DIFFERENT way of learning. Also, maybe her family gives her money in place of their love because they HAVE more money & don’t understand love. Personally, I’d prefer love over money EVERY time!!!

You are the ONLY one who can change the way you see her!!! Jealousy will drive you insane & you seem to be way to cleaver to fall into that trap!!! Be HAPPY with the blessings that you DO have & remember that you cannot see the PAIN that she’s feeling!!! FOCUS on YOUR own goals & STOP worrying about hers. You CAN’T achieve your goals while focused on hers!!!

Give yourself a break & makde yourself a better person…you won’t be sorry you did!!!

Is this person one of your students?

I think jealously is a common issue that many people need to work through. By itself, I wouldn’t be too concerned.

Though I do think it’s a bit troubling that a teacher is envious of their student. Regardless of whether they are popular or unpopular, they are not your peers.

@raum No, she’s a sister of a friend. It doesn’t help that her sister keeps talking about how much she achieves.

Is her sister envious of her achievements?

What is your relationship like with your friend/her sister? Maybe it has more to do with that dynamic?

@raum as far as I know, the sister is also among the supportive people in her life. She doesn’t talk with the intention to bring me down, she just wants to show me how proud she is of her sister. We are on good terms and the girl has no real problem with me, although she can appear rather callous sometimes, but that might just be her being a teen.

So yeah, I’m aware this is mainly my own problem. There are things I see in her that I’m not happy with myself. When I fail at something, like not satisfied with my drawing, I hear voice saying “you are a loser. That girl could do a thousand times better than you and she won’t have to sweat so much like you. What is wrong with you?”

”...mainly my own problem…”

Wrong. This is entirely your own problem.

Relevant

I think next time you are not satisfied with a drawing, try saying “I can do better. Next time I will do better.”

The only one you are competing with should be yourself.

I’m often dissatisfied with my own drawings. I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with that.

I make note of my mistakes. I resolve to do better next time. And then I do just that.

No matter how good I am, there will always be people who are worse. And there will always be people who better.

Neither of those things affect the quality of my own work.

Use comparison as motivation to improve what actually matters.
Besides, everybody’s fighting their own battles whether or not they are obvious to others.

Actually @lucillelucillelucille is right. Comparison to others as a way to push yourself harder can be a good thing.

But there’s a difference between pushing yourself and beating up on yourself.

Usually, the perfect and seemingly effortlessly talented are either secretly extremely hard workers, or will simply fail when it comes to real life. And the popular ones are always voted class president, duhh. It has nothing to do with how “perfect” she is.

You seem to be viewing life as if it is supposed to be one thing and go down one very narrow path. Like it’s a contest or something, and not being moderately YouTube famous makes you less than someone who is.

The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

And as an advocate for the left behind, unsupported, and abandoned: your past is your power. A difficult life is a whole lot more interesting than an easy one.

I’d try to spend time with the person you’re jealous of, and get to know her better. If nothing else, maybe you’ll see she is not perfect, or does struggle, or maybe even give you hints on how to improve your drawing, etc…

There’s usually something to love about every person, that’s what I would try to focus on to rid yourself of the ugly jealousy. I’m very competitive myself, and always made friends with people I thought I could learn from. It worked very well.

There is no “perfect”. She may have traits or skills you wish you had or were better at, but everyone has their flaws or, more accurately, things they wish they were better at. You don’t see them. You may never see them. She may be very good at hiding her “flaws” or has compensated for them. But they’re there. And they bother her just as much as yours bother you and mine bother me.

All that said, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because we all have a finite amount of energy on any given day, week, month, year, or lifetime. So, when you find yourself thinking about how “perfect” little miss “perfect” is, you can deplete some of your finite energy by either being jealous of her and accomplishing nothing or by using those feelings as fuel to motivate you to do better and work harder and accomplish something.

Thank you everyone for answering, or at least listening to my rant. As @raum and I have worked out, I think the problem here is that I’m never fully satisfied with myself. I set up high standards for myself and when I don’t meet my standards I indulge in self-punishment. And while the self-criticism goes on I tend to just see the negativity to further confirm that I’m worthless. I’m incredibly sorry for that girl, she doesn’t have to endure any of my rage, she has done nothing wrong to me. This is only between me and myself, and she is just unlucky enough to have all the good traits my inner critic wants me to have.

Once again thank you for listening to me.

You know…if you’re interested, maybe you could share some of your work here on Fluther. It’s kind of your safe space. It may be a good place to work on that inner voice. I’m sure many of us would be happy to chime in and replace that jerk. Or at least give it a swift kick to the pants. :P

@raum Thank you. I have scanned some of my drawings, originally to show one unbiased friend. Maybe I can put the drawings again here just to piss my inner critic off for a change :)

And if anything good comes out of this, I didn’t know you also draw until now. I’m genuinely surprised.

@Mimishu1995 “Maybe I’m just irritated that because she doesn’t work for anything, she seems cocky, unsympathetic and lazy, whether she really intends to be like that or not. Maybe I’m just jealous that I had to work so hard only to come second to someone who was born with a silver spoon.” Mimi, people who grow up with every advantage tend to turn out like this. I am glad you had to work hard because you have compassion, because you know what it’s like to be the underdog.

My son was the same in many respects. As a child everything he tried came easily to him because he was so talented, so good looking, so athletic, etc. In his case, all he wanted to do was be silly and goof off. He was impossible to work with.

He had to go through a long hard time in life to learn how to work hard, but that long hard time scarred him and made him indifferent to some of the struggles others have.

I think you’re great just the way you are! Because your friend has never had to struggle she may have a very difficult time if she ever and counters difficulty. When- not if that happens- I hope you will be there to help her through it because she will need it!

I think there are a lot of jellies draw. :)

@raum Ok, so I have put the pictures together here. Not sure if it’s the right place but…

These are great! I learned to draw by redrawing my favorite cartoon strips and comic books too. :D

Hey I’ve seen your stuff girl. You’re a champ in my view. Tell the other girl to go suck an egg. No don’t. Lol

Bet she’s not nearly as talented and accomplished as you are. People like that are just anus cavities.