During my endless attempts to become the best version of myself, I always made one big mistake: I constantly compared my experience with someone else’s. I tried to be better than other people in something, comparing myself with them. And here I had no chance to win, even if trying really hard, because there will always be someone in the world who will inevitably be better than you in some way.
The philosophy of stoicism assumes that in order for a person to achieve calmness and serenity, it is necessary not to forget that there are external things that we cannot influence as well as internal things which are completely under our control. We obviously are not able to be better than other people only because we are not them, and we are not able to control them.
Another thing to remember is that while trying to become a bit better we are already ahead of many others who don’t do that, who do not make any attempts to live a better life.
I believe we need to try to be better than our past selves. Abandoning the desire to become better than another person brings calmness and control over the situation, because you can control yourself completely.