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How Nature Can Teach You to Restore Trust in Yourself
What to do when you feel like you’re falling behind
It can feel discouraging to feel like you’re behind all of your peers. The social media posts, the LinkedIn announcements, the school alumni newsletters, and even the occasional news article that reads: “She’s only 26 and is already making millions of dollars!”.
People glorify the young, praise the early retirement success story, and extol those who mark life’s checkboxes when they should. And as they say, when you are not the subject of these stories, comparison can be the thief of joy.
As humans, there is a strange obsession with defining and reaching life milestones — the Internet is full of articles like “30 Things To Do Before You’re 30” or “What You Should Have Accomplished by 50”. An unspoken code weaved into society, as if we all run on an algorithm and if we fail to oblige we are a flawed bug in the system.
I know I should have accomplished that by now, but I couldn’t: so what does that make me?
But when I find myself thinking this way, there is something that helps me reorient myself, a concept known as oubaitori (桜梅桃李).
