Dark Wizards are both competitive, nosy neighbors, and general sapphire-loving jerks.
Don't be a Dark Wizard.
That's right, your competition will crush you.
Not because you aren't wonderful and talented and amazing, because you are all those things whether you're willing to admit it or not. Not because your competition is better, stronger, faster, whatever. The reason your competition will kick your butt is because when we say "your competition," we don't mean other people/organizations/things that are competing with you. We mean "the competition that you're taking part in."
Especially now that we're completely over-saturated with media (thanks internet!), we can often find examples that prove our own internal head-demons right. With not much searching, we can find that famous person who started out homeless and a drug addict and then became a noble-prize winning scholar (or some crazy story like that). We can find examples of people who were in our own situations and then became wildly successful (seemingly overnight, as per the flash and bang of most stories like these). After hearing about something like that, how can we not compare ourselves?
So like we said in our title, your competition will crush you. It is much harder fighting the good fight when it seems like you've already lost to someone else. When we constantly compare ourselves to others, we never get a chance to really compare ourselves to our true potential, which is what really matters in the end. In that sense, the battle is lost before it's fought. So how do you win the fight with yourself?
The best way to overcome this potentially debilitating self-criticism is to not compare yourself to other people at all. While we're not advocating sticking your head in the mud and ignoring the world, what really is the use of comparing yourself to other people? Is there any point to compare ourselves to outliers that aren't representative of the population as a whole? To make yourself feel worse about yourself? Really? Seriously, what's the point? We'll answer that for you - there is none.
There's no reason to fuel your own self-doubt. Other people will be more successful and less successful (by your standards - make sure you have already defined success for yourself), so get over it. You have something amazing locked up inside of you (don't try to deny it!), it's just your job to figure out what your gift to the world is and to go and nourish it and help it grow.
Everyone should tend to their own gardens without looking at your neighbor's as if their grass is greener. Everyone has the capacity and seed and raw potential to grow their own unique beautiful garden, but too much time is wasted on envying others' growth spurt. It's wasted time and energy. While you are busy focused on other people, you may have just missed your own tiny budding potential peeking its way from underground. Don't miss that chance and see for yourself how awesome you are and really embrace all your raw potential that you have as a human being.
Honor the seeds you have planted. Nurture it and be your own number fan. Only after you have loved yourself, will the world come to see you as you see yourself. Your competition can't crush you if it doesn't exist, so grab your water bucket and start growing something worthwhile. Remember, you can have it all (and more!) if you really want it, so drop the competition and be the greatest success you can be!
