“New year, new me.”

The most cliché phrase you hear every year. Many people have resolutions to hold them accountable and to become the best version of themselves for the new year. Some people set goals for themselves inspired by their idols or other influencers. However, there’s a difference between being inspired by another person and wanting to be that person. 

Everyone wants to live a “perfect life”. Whether it’s the life you see Kendall Jenner living on Instagram, or the life of a movie star, or even the life of the person sitting next to you in history with straight A’s, most people aspire to have the lives of different people. Everyone’s perception of a “perfect life” is different. Some people want to wake up at 5 every morning to run five miles and others just want to be able to wake up on time for school. 

Our brains have been trained to believe that we should strive to live the life of others, especially with the influence of social media. Having aspiring dreams is different, since one would work their way to achieving their goals. However, you shouldn’t compare yourself to other people. The lives they present to the world are completely different than the lives that they are actually living. 

The thing is, you really don’t know what’s going on in another person’s life. Your science lab partner might have been laughing at all your cheesy biology puns, but they could be having a terrible day and feel extremely vulnerable. Your mom comes home with the groceries telling you about the adorable kitten she saw in the check-out line, but she leaves out the part where someone stole her credit card. You don’t know what someone is going through unless you are living in their shoes. Yeah, you heard about how your best friend broke up with her boyfriend and how heartbreak is awful, but since you’ve never experienced it, you don’t fully understand her true emotions. Because of the “secret lives” that other people are living, we must be understanding and flexible towards others. 

“And, Govinda saw it like this, this smile of the mask, this smile of oneness above the flowing forms, this smile of simultaneousness above the thousand births and deaths, this smile of Siddhartha was precisely the same, was precisely of the same kind as the quiet, delicate, impenetrable, perhaps benevolent, perhaps mocking, wise, thousand-fold smile of Gotama, the Buddha, as he had seen it himself with great respect a hundred times.”

– Siddhartha (Chapter 12)

You will never know what was behind the scenes of that Instagram picture or what goes on in the mind of a millionaire lawyer. These are just little snippets of the adventure that everyone is living, so focus on your own life, and strive to become your best self instead.

Your life is like a movie. You are the main character starring in your own movie, while everyone else are either co-stars or background characters who are crucial to moving the storyline along. However, the difference between your movie and every other movie is that the plot is not written out. You are the director of your movie, the author of your book, the storyteller of your story. That’s the magic of life-it’s an entire “once upon a time”.

So go out and write your own adventure.