This idea is stupidly obvious. Too obvious to think it would make a real difference to your life. It’s not the genius solution to all your problems that you’ve been looking for but it will help with a lot of them.

That idea is to focus only on what you’re doing.

Your whole life is like a car driving down a long road and you’re the only one in the driver’s seat. You’re the only one who can influence your life in any way. You make all your decisions yourself after all.

If you want to live a good life, it makes sense to carry out all your actions with care and focus.

You don’t want to get distracted by what anyone else is doing. You don’t want to obsess over other people’s lives. You have your own one to focus on and that’s already hard enough.

Stop noticing other people’s problems. Stop giving people boatloads of advice. Stop comparing yourself to people nowhere near you in life.

Realise that you’re the only one holding the tools to change your life. Escaping into other people’s lives won’t make your situation better.

Here are three ideas to think about to stay focused on your life:

Other people’s problems are not your problems.

Think about this idea for a moment:

You’ll go very far in life if you just focus on what’s in front of you instead of worrying about what anyone else is doing.

It’s easy to point out what’s wrong with other people (or at least what you think is wrong with them). You might notice a random person walking on the street and instantly start judging their gait, height, clothing choices and all the other ‘weird’ things about them.

After that, you would likely walk away without saying a word to them. You’ll have wasted precious energy thinking about their so-called flaws while you were never considering doing anything to help them.

If you stopped pointing out everything you find wrong about other people, you would have more energy and feel happier. You would be able to use that energy to point out your own flaws and problems instead and work to fix them.

Understand this truth: other people’s problems are not your problems.

It doesn’t matter how someone else lives their life, or what odd characteristics they have. That’s not your problem. The real problem is you caring so much about what they’re like in the first place.

The Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius had a great line in his Meditations:

What ease of mind you gain from not looking at what your neighbour has said or done or thought, but only at your own actions, to make them just, reverential, imbued with good!

When I say that other people’s problems are not your problems, this doesn’t mean to ignore those who are struggling. It just means that if you’re going to point out something wrong with someone else, you should help them, or else it’s not your problem.

You can focus instead on making your own actions as good as possible, and not using other people’s flaws to feel better about yourself.

You can’t win the game of comparison.

The game you play of comparing yourself to others will never end.

You might finally feel superior to someone and then realise how many more people are ‘better’ than you. And then you’ll compare yourself to those people, and then the people above them, and so on.

I won’t tell you to just stop comparing yourself to other people. It’s not that easy as comparison is baked into human nature. But you have to become aware of when you’re doing it. It’s one of the worst things you can do for yourself.

Comparing yourself to others is pointless for 4 reasons:

1. Everyone is different. This should be obvious. Every person is at a completely different position in life. Everyone has had wildly different experiences. No two people have the same DNA. Nobody deserves to be compared to someone else.
2. The people you’re comparing yourself to probably aren’t living a life you’d want to live. You know nothing about most people’s real lives. You might idolise a smart person, or a rich person, and think that when you become like them, you’ll finally be happier. What you might not know is that they might feel depressed, anxious, overworked and lonely every single day. Don’t instantly assume someone else’s life is better than yours until you live it.
3. Everyone compares themselves to everyone else. Nobody has life figured out. You might look at successful people and think they’ve made it in life. Here’s a shocker: they’re still human. They’re still comparing themselves to other people. They still feel like imposters sometimes. It’s simply human nature. Nobody, regardless of how accomplished they are, can escape it.
4. Winning the game of comparison won’t make you happier. Outcomparing someone won’t make you feel happier when it happens. You’ll realise it didn’t matter in the first place. You’ll just feel more empty inside.

The game of comparison is infinite. The only way to win it is to escape it. To do this, stop playing it with others and start playing it with yourself. Only compare yourself to who you were yesterday.

That’s the only comparison worth making.

Follow your own advice.

The best advice is often your own advice.

A lot of us are great at giving advice to others but suck at following it.

You’ve probably given some great advice to people in the past. How much of that advice do you use yourself though? How much of it is just an attempt to exert your control over how other people live their lives so you can shy away from the responsibility of living your own life?

If you want others to follow your advice, you have to start following it too. Or else, it loses its meaning and it’s not worth listening to.

You wouldn’t want to listen to someone lecturing you about being healthy while they’re not living a healthy life themself. You wouldn’t want to take writing advice from someone who never writes. You wouldn’t want to take relationship advice from someone who doesn’t have great relationships with others.

You don’t want to be that person nobody wants to take advice from. Your actions mean a lot more than your words. Start doing more and talking less about what’s best to do.

Giving advice is a beautiful thing. It’s great to help people with your words.

You need to have a balance between giving it and following it though. Or else, whose life are you really engaged in more? Yours or somebody else’s?

I’ll end with this idea:

Stop telling others how they should live. Start following your own advice. Stop forcing your ideal life onto others. Start creating it for yourself.

Final thoughts

Imagine how it would feel at the end of your life to have been so obsessed with someone else’s life, while forgetting about your own one.

You’re not the most important person in life itself but you are the most important person in your life. If you don’t give yourself enough attention, you won’t be able to do much for others. You can’t just forget that you exist.

Nobody else will live your life for you. You have to make sure you do a good job at it yourself, one that your future self will be proud of.