You likely have a background process that analyzes a”perfect” person and quickly compares who they are, what you see, or what you assume about them with yourself. By “yourself” we mean everything about you, like your skills, abilities, characteristics, and interests. If the “perfect” person has things you’d like to have or he/she has things you think you should have (because of what others/society say), you may unknowingly or knowingly take that as a reason to be unhappy or feel bad.
There are reasons why you would do this. For example, you may do this to show or prove to yourself that you dislike your current state and would want to have or obtain the traits/characteristics/etc similar of the perfect person you’re seeing. In other cases, you might make yourself feel bad because you were unknowingly taught or believe you’re supposed to feel bad whenever you see someone you consider “perfect.”
There is no universal law that says you have to feel bad when you encounter someone with more desirable traits than you. There are people in society who think and believe that you should, but they are humans just like you; if your goal is to be free of anxiety and emotional pain, you will have to break free from thinking like these people. These people may believe their way of thinking is right but like we said, they’re humans just like you.
Others may have things you prefer and live a life you prefer, but your internal peace is at stake if you take these realities as reasons to feel bad about yourself. You may fear that if you didn’t feel bad in certain situations–like when you’re not at the same level as others in certain domain–you wouldn’t put in work to improve yourself. Is that true?
If you genuinely want to change something, then you’re going to put in the work. If you don’t put in the work, you might not genuinely want to make a change. As long as you don’t look to others to determine if your lack of desire is ok, you can be at peace with your decision. Callout: just because you don’t want to change or improve something now doesn’t mean you won’t have motivation to change in the future. Reminder: you can often only improve so many things at once.
Some people you think are “perfect” may think they’re special
Some parts of society seem to believe that people with certain traits deserve certain privileges. If you were to ask these individuals why they think like this, they may not have an answer. The idea that certain people should get special privileges came from another human like yourself. Since they are a human just like you, why would their opinion be more important than your own? We (humans) sometimes let the opinions of others dictate what we think is true or how we feel about ourselves.
Unless the creator of earth ordained that some people deserve special privileges because of how they were born or what they have, the idea that some people should have more privileges than others is not a universal truth.
If you care what “perfect” people think about you
You may be afraid of them looking at you negatively or judging you because you’ve knowingly or uknowingly given their opinion special privileges or importance. You may have attached your internal peace to aspects of their perception and what they think about you. You no longer have to do this. Note: Some people (we call “idealized people”) know that others treat them differently because of their characteristics or the things they have. Depending on the personality of the idealized person, they may use this special treatment people to influence others for their personal gain.
In some cases, you may fear that these perfect people are going to take your behaviors or actions and think something you don’t like or agree with. You can now be ok with this, knowing that they are a human like you.
The opposite, not being ok with them drawing a conclusion about you that you disagree with or prefer they didn’t have puts you at risk of experiencing anxiety or emotional pain whenever you’re around them. That’s why we suggest you do the work to be ok with this happening now, to emotionally protect yourself in the future. Details on how to stop viewing something as unacceptable is here.
Those who believe their opinion is special or should be listened to may make you uncomfortable
You can eliminate this discomfort by remembering that what they believe is unique to them and doesn’t have to determine what you think or believe. After realizing this, you can do the work to be okay with them having different views or beliefs from you. Some who believe their opinion is special may think some of your decisions and behaviors arebeing or will be influenced because of their opinion.
You probably prefer for this not to be the case, but for you to have internal peace, you must be ok with them erroneously thinking this. There may be times when their opinion does influence your decisions and actions but as you do more inner work which this site helps you do, you’ll be less and less influenced by outside opinions.
Sometimes, opinions from “perfect” people doesn’t matter at all
- If the opinion has nothing to do with your objective or goal, you may find that there is no benefit to considering their opinion.
- If you’re using their opinions to predict future scenarios, just know that there is no data that suggests anyone, even with past data or experience, can predict the future with 100% accuracy. Also, if you are unable to be ok with the future, you’re trying to predict–which you probably want to avoid–then you have revealed a situation that is causing you emotional pain. You can take time and find out why you wouldn’t be ok with that potential future. Any future you’re not ok with it or view as unacceptable, will be a source of emotional pain or anxiety for you. This doesn’t mean you want that future to happen but that you’d choose internal peace if even if it did.
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- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beastly-behavior/201811/the-beauty-human-imperfection ↩︎
