You sit in a quiet place. Maybe in a coffee shop. Maybe on the couch after a long day. And suddenly, an idea hits you.
Why am I not successful?
Maybe you thought you were going to have a baby by now. Or a business that prints money. Or a name that people actually recognize. Maybe you thought you were going to be a landlord. And you would understand it all.
But none of this happened.
So you start comparing.
- This guy was a millionaire by the time he was 30.
- By the age of 26, he had a bestseller.
- He became the CEO at the age of 40.
- He retired at the age of 48.
So?
They are not you. But it still stings, right?
“Why not me?”
I’ve been there more times than I can count. And each time I noticed the same thing. The comparison never occurred to me. It came from an outside perspective.
Many of us fall into this trap. We have become more materialistic and outwardly focused every year. This is not new. We have been doing this for a long time. But the situation is getting worse.
You may think that what your friends think of you is important. Or strangers look at you and think, “Wow, this is a successful man.”
But here is the truth. In ten or twenty years, those people will not be with you.
They care about themselves.
This is normal human behavior.
So why are you organizing your life around their applause?
The effect was never size dependent
This is where many people make a mistake. In our opinion, the impact is only considered when it is large and public.
But the effect is not like that.
Think about the people who have shaped you the most. A parent, teacher or friend who said the right thing at the right time.
None of them were famous. None of them had an audience. They mattered not because they were known, but because they were close to you.
This is the rule. Influence is not through popularity, but through proximity.
I think about it now with my own life. I have a young son. He doesn’t know how many people read my articles, he doesn’t care. In his eyes, I am not a writer with an audience.
I’m just her dad. Those relationships shape him more than anything I’ve ever published. And almost none of this happens in public.
Psychologists have been studying what they call for decades importanta basic human need is to feel important to other people. Their work will continue to come down to the same point.
Feeling important has almost nothing to do with fame or status. It depends on whether you can make a real difference to the people in your life.
The most famous Stoic understood this long before research existed. Marcus Aurelius ruled the Roman Empire. He could have any monument, any legacy, any fame he wanted.
Instead, he mentioned the opposite in his personal journal:
“It’s useless to remember.”
Think about who said it. Not a writer struggling with twelve visions. The strongest man alive. He looked at fame, the thing that everyone chases, and called it empty.
Because he knew that your life is meaningless when the world is applauding.
When you do good work, when you treat people well, it’s meaningful whether anyone sees it or not.
You cannot force your life into a certain shape
Most of our unhappiness comes from believing that no one cares. You wake up, work, come home, watch TV, sleep. You forget what your real job is. To be useful to the people in front of you.
But instead of doing the work in front of us, we try to force results.
A high income, a good job title or a house in the right neighborhood.
We are like magicians who wave a wand and make life go according to schedule.
You’re not. I’m not either. No one is.
Sometimes it takes a while to get where you want to be. That doesn’t mean the trip was wasted.
Because we are obsessed with results, we measure life in milestones. But life is not all about results. It’s about whether or not what you’re doing today is something you respect.
William James said it best.
“Act like what you’re doing makes a difference. It does.”
This is the whole game.
How to properly measure your life
So how do you take down a famous or failed ruler? Here’s what worked for me.
- Name your real audience. List the people whose life you truly touch. Family. Close friends. The people you work with. A few readers, clients, or customers that you actually serve. This short list is your real audience. There is no faceless crowd watching you and judging you.
- Measure contribution, not attention. In the end, don’t ask who noticed you. Instead, ask one question. Did I help someone today even a little bit? Good conversation is important. Honest work counts. Appearance is important.
- Do something that no one applauds. The boring, invisible work is usually the most important work. Raising a child well. Doing your job right. Being the friend who picks up the phone. No one will applaud you for this, though your work is important more than anything you do for show.
- Exit the comparison feed. Social media is a machine to make your real life feel small next to the highlights of others. When you start whispering that transfer is not important to you, this is not a concept. This car works. Use less of it.
Your life is already counted
Your life doesn’t need an audience to count. It never happened.
The point was never seen. The point is to be helpful to the people in front of you and do something that you respect even if no one knows your name.
Do this and your life matters. Quietly, but completely.
The world doesn’t have to agree.
