Comparing Martial Arts Practices

As a martial arts student, you're always anxious to improve your practice; to be the best you can be. Then we fall into a trip. We ask others what they are doing and how they are training and we can't help but to compare ourselves to them.

One way or the other, comparing ourselves to others will certainly make us unhappy because of human nautre.

Below is an excerpt from a post at Zen Habits. The full article may be read here. Please pay a visit.

The Futility of Comparing Yourself to Others

By Leo Babauta

One of the biggest reasons we’re not content with ourselves and our lives is that we compare ourselves to other people.

Picture it: you see photos of what someone else is doing on Facebook and think your life isn’t exciting enough. You see someone else who has a cool job and think you’re not doing that great in your career. You see someone with a hotter body, and feel bad about yours. You see someone who has created an awesome business, and think you’re not doing enough. You read about people who are traveling the world, learning languages, going to exotic resorts and restaurants, and wonder why you’re not.

Of course, you’re comparing your reality to an ideal, a fantasy.

It’s not a comparison that makes sense. You can’t compare apples to apples when you compare yourself to anyone else. Which means it’s a dumb comparison — why would you compare how tangy an orange is compared to a beach? They’re not similar things.

Let’s take an example: I’m out running in the park, and I see someone running past me. Obviously he’s a faster runner, and better than me! Oh, that makes me feel horrible about myself as a runner!