One of the more consistent themes I've considered tattooing on myself is a wrist holding a deck of cards. The idea behind it is that everyone's given the exact set of cards that they need to win the game of life they were put on earth to 'win'. You owe it to yourself to play the best game available out of the cards you are dealt with.
Even so, as much as we would like to think our set of cards are wholly and entirely unique, there are certain overlaps between one or two cards in our deck to the one or two someone else has in theirs. When explained like this, the rationale of why you should not compare or take someone else's advise as the bible truth, becomes clearer.
If you think about it, their advise or opinion is tainted with the bias of their own set of cards (which are not yours). It's riddled with their own trials and errors. Their own risk appetite. Their own tresholds.
You see, everyone's baseline was never the same to begin with. The idea that the greatest of your joys and pain is yours to bear, but also, in differing intensities, also a universal experience is weirdly comforting, ...no? Just look at the way poets describe longing. The way directors depict bone chilling horror. It's not your longing, not your fears, and yet, something inside you can #relate.
Sometimes, what takes you three years to get over could take someone else a mere three weeks. Sometimes, what looks like way too much work on someone's plate to be done by a single person is another person's regular Friday night. What seems like an extremely liberal mindset to one, is only average in another person's life. What seems like abuse and dehumanization to one, resembles 'true love' to another. What appears as irresponsible spending to one, is another's purchase of their version of happiness. What looks like bad parenting to one, is how another parent intends to break generational trauma. What looks like wasted efforts to one, is just another exhausted means to getting where they want to be at. Three hours of exercise can look vastly different to an adult who grappled with teen obesity, compared to someone who is of normal weight and is just about to get into shape. Some people die for their religion, while others may look at all religions as just another medium to connect to a higher being. What appears like bravery, honour and sacrifice to someone considering enlisting in the army, could look like selfishness or foolishness to another member of their family. What sounds like pure distressing noise to one person is another's favourite genre of music.
That's because, to state the obvious, we come with different thresholds.
Often, when we play our game of life, we fall into the trap of abandoning our course, our intuition, trust in our own trial and errors. We try to live it through another's' prescription/life advise/dispositions/ideas and most importantly thresholds, because it looks like they have things figured out. But we often forget that each person had a different baseline or climate to work with, and in adopting that:
You risk trying to mimic someone in the middle of their journey, while only being at the start of yours, THEN prematurely labeling yourself as a failure if it does not work out.
You risk the path perfectly carved out for you falling through , because you have chosen to abandon it by looking at someone else's life choices as precedent to what you should do next.
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"We become who we love."
That was a theme in a sermon of one of my friend's wedding this weekend. While most times this is beyond our control, may we never forget or abandon our own hand of cards.
We got this.
