Uncomparable You / by Alexander Lyadov

In youth, you can’t help but measure yourself against others. The world around you pushes it—same subjects, same exams, same questions from everyone: “So, where are you applying?” Society fears anything different, as if we’re in Sparta, tossing the “flawed” off a cliff.

Maybe nature’s to blame, quietly driving natural selection. Or the industrial school system, still churning out workers for machines. Or just the raw fear of being cast out from the tribe for being odd, and thus a threat.

What matters more is this: with time, you realize, “I don’t want to live someone else’s life. I want my own.” Later, it hits you: “Huh, I couldn’t live any life but mine anyway.”

The very attempt to compare implies the assumption that there is an objective ideal of life, one you can measure against, like checking a blueprint.

If that were true, we’d all agree. A single ideal would shine in every city square, and every hospital, college, and congress would hand out a golden template. Doubt yourself? Check your life, fix it, and bask in joy, harmony, and love.

But what do we see? Not just regular folks and politicians, but psychologists, philosophers, and religious leaders still argue over this ideal. Some even start holy wars over it.

A subtler trap is thinking someone else knows the purpose for your life. As a kid, it’s your parents. In youth, it’s teachers. As an adult, it’s some guru from centuries past.

In doing so, you declare: "This other person is God, for he sees my life's path ahead of time." Your life stops being a grand mystery. It’s just an answer to a solved problem—the one you can earn, peek at, or buy. Boring enough to kill flies.

You can compare bits of life, sure, but even then, it’s like measuring a shadow, a spit, or a warm chair. Your whole life? Let the one who gave it to you judge it — He knows best.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


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