Meeting patients every day makes me reflect on many things. The past days, I have been thinking about that sometimes in life, when we meet people, we perceive it as unfair if we see that everything in their life tends to move forward in a smooth way. They make a fast carreer or they have met a partner who is attentive of their needs etc.
My thoughts about this is this is a very common thought error to take out part of a cake in someone´s life and compare it to something in our own life that we are not satisfied with. But it´s also important to get conscious about that it is a thought error and that it makes us feel miserable. First of all we can save a lot of energy we put on the comparison to see if we can find something in our own life where we can put energy in order to feel better about ourselves. Sometimes we try to do this but we think that it impossible to stop the thoughts about the comparisons. Often that is true; the more we try to stop to think about a certain thing, the more we think about it. My suggestion here is to try and fill your life with behaviors that make you feel good in the long run. If you don´t know what those behaviors might be, try different things, for example, take a class in Japanese, learn tango, learn more about chocolate or wine etc. After when the behaviors are done, register your feelings and in this way you will become more satisfied in the long run and think less about others.
Moreover if despite the strategies above you can´t help comparing yourself, then at least take the whole cake in someone´s life and compare to your life. May be someone has a great carreer but bad contact with their child, may be the other person has money but he or she has a bad family situation etc. Thinking in this way you will get a more objective view of how things are and you will often feel less miserable.
Meeting patients every day makes me reflect on many things. The past days, I have been thinking about that sometimes in life, when we meet people, we perceive it as unfair if we see that everything in their life tends to move forward in a smooth way. They make a fast carreer or they have met a partner who is attentive of their needs etc.
My thoughts about this is this is a very common thought error to take out part of a cake in someone´s life and compare it to something in our own life that we are not satisfied with. But it´s also important to get conscious about that it is a thought error and that it makes us feel miserable. First of all we can save a lot of energy we put on the comparison to see if we can find something in our own life where we can put energy in order to feel better about ourselves. Sometimes we try to do this but we think that it impossible to stop the thoughts about the comparisons. Often that is true; the more we try to stop to think about a certain thing, the more we think about it. My suggestion here is to try and fill your life with behaviors that make you feel good in the long run. If you don´t know what those behaviors might be, try different things, for example, take a class in Japanese, learn tango, learn more about chocolate or wine etc. After when the behaviors are done, register your feelings and in this way you will become more satisfied in the long run and think less about others.
Moreover if despite the strategies above you can´t help comparing yourself, then at least take the whole cake in someone´s life and compare to your life. May be someone has a great carreer but bad contact with their child, may be the other person has money but he or she has a bad family situation etc. Thinking in this way you will get a more objective view of how things are and you will often feel less miserable.