I was listening to someone’s gym experience recently, it was quite interesting but more importantly, gave me a big lesson about Life.
According to him, he went to the gym with his wife and they saw a guy doing Press Up. They could hear the count 51, 52, 53… his wife became jealous and said to him “Can you see that?” Feeling humiliated and desperate to impress his wife, he decided to jump to the floor and do the same, by the time he got to 15, his hands could barely carry his body.
Meanwhile, the other guy had stopped at the count of 60. By this time, he was already feeling humble. So, he decided to approach the supposed strong man to find out the secrete of lasting longer. He laughed out really loud and he said to him “My brother, I usually start my counting from 50 just to impress all these fine girls around, so when I’m counting 60, I’ve only done 10”.
There you have it! Don’t we get deceived every day by people like this gym man who are constantly putting up appearances to make us feel inadequate, insufficient and lazy, even though we’re trying our best? The problem as I see it is not with them, it is with us who allow the quality of our lives to be measured by the success of another.
Isn’t it interesting how far people go to impress people out of their jealous of someone who in the real sense may not be exactly what they think they are? I’ve seen people buy cars to compete with friends only to discover that their friends were actually driving a borrowed car.
It is just as Solomon puts it, “…most people are motivated to success because they envy their neighbours. But this, too, is meaningless—like chasing the wind.” [Eccl 4:4].
Don’t make anybody your yardstick of success so that you won’t put yourself under any unnecessary pressure. Your life is different, your path is different and so is your success.
