Stop Comparing Yourself to Other People (Here's Why) 

I always found people to be hypocrtical about this. Very often if you're going through a bad time, people are happy to tell you to think about those who are even worse off to make yourself feel better. But when its the other way around, and you compare in a way that helps you see your life even worse, they tell you comparing is stupid. Cant have it both ways.

i do occasionally feel superior to an ant thank you for asking

What really freed me of comparisons is that i found out no comparison is fair, with no exceptions. You can have a twin with whom you spend your every second and be in vastly different positions in life. The reason is, there are so many factors which people get shaped by. It doesn't mean that it's fair to compare yourself with your classmates, siblings or basically any person that you think you are in the same league just because you are being shaped by the same environment(you might be in the same school), same people(same social circle) and other stuff(maybe the same social background?). You are not in the same league with any person on this planet. This doesn't mean that you are below or above anybody, it means that everybody is being shaped by endless number of different variables that it will NEVER be fair to compare two people who seem to be in the "same league." edit: you can read some sociological theories if you're interested in this style of thinking.

Don't compare yourself to others - that's an easy thing to say but life trains you to compare yourself. Think about it, you are being rated, compared to others nearly anywhere you go (at school, at work, when applying for work, when dating).

Downward comparison never makes me feel better, I usually end up thinking that it's cruel and some day I can be even in worse position and tables can be flipped ,so I find compassion more sustainable.

One thing I have noticed about comparison is that I am very verbose about my problems in life and I will compare myself to people who put out a good image and keep their problems secret. It always gets me; I always forget that the other person is likely to have problems that compare to mine, but since they don't talk publicly about it, I end up feeling like I'm inferior because I do have problems

“Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish based on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid” - Einstein

maaan, you're so well spoken and authentic in your talks. I also really enjoy the subjects you choose, and this one hits home especially. Happy holidays and I hope you have a great time!

I have a childhood friend who I'm really close with, and I've been trying to get him into self-development content for as long as I can remember, by sharing content like yours sometimes whenever I felt it was relevant. This was because I've always seen a lot of potential in him and thought that this sort of content would help him achieve what he's truly capable of (he's doing pretty well as it is, but I just thought self-improvement content would be a great catalyst). Today he shared me this video of yours and he was telling me that he's been really into your content lately, and how it's helped him immensely in trying to understand his place in the world. It made me really happy and proud as his friend! Thank you so much for doing what you're doing!

What trips me up most about comparisons is that they're also useful for a third reason-- they help you get a sense for what's normal and what you can reasonably expect from reality. As an autistic kid, I never used to compare myself to other people. It didn't occur to me that they were similar enough to me to warrant comparison and I had no frame of reference for what was or wasn't normal. I only ever compared myself to myself. But as I got older, I realized that I am in fact a human too and that several of the things I thought were normal actually had medical terms, or were bullshit ideas I picked up from being raised in a family with a cycle of abuse, trauma, and poor boundary setting. Comparing myself to others has become an invaluable tool for making sure I'm setting appropriate boundaries, having reasonable expectations, and not letting myself be gaslit. It was also useful when I was sick for a few years and needed surgery-- instead of getting mad because I wasn't as productive as I knew I could be when I wasn't sick, I could compare myself to other sick people and recalibrate my expectations. The problem is that once the door to comparison is open, it's SO easy to fall into the other traps. And I think sometimes it can lead us to underestimate ourselves, because we'll assume that if no one else is doing something, we shouldn't expect it from ourselves.

What about comparing yourself to your past self? I usually find myself comparing myself this way when I feel like I have grown in some way. It helps to compare because then I learn what I have done or am currently doing to grow out of my younger self and avoid the pitfalls I used to fall into.

Very timely. My mother just compared me to several people coming over for the holiays and how far I'm behind in life professionally compared to them.... tanking my mental health and reinforcing my core feeling of being a failuire. We're bad enough critics of ourselves but some parent's also don't help in terms of comparison.

The thing is when you become better than the ones you compare yourself and you get validation from others it feels so good and your ego gets stroked so hard

This is basically the whole character of Tahani in the Good Place. She was the best out of all of them, including Elenor but she could not, for the life of her, stop comparing herself to her successful sister. I loved her because she was so relatable, and captured this thought process so perfectly. 😂

“We are all individually valuable, once you start loving yourself and accepting how wonderful you are, just you, you wont compare yourself with others negatively. You’ll acknowledge that everyone else's wonderfulness doesn’t take away from your wonderfulness.”

Having looked into mental health for awhile now, it sucks how a lot of these problems are correlated. Take comparisons for example. A lot people who develop toxic comparisons have this rooted from childhood from bad parenting. And then this ends up affecting your motivation and self esteem. And because all of this sucks, you end up developing depression or anxiety. I love watching these individual topics from Dr. K, it’s just hard to tackle them individually when all of these problems are affected/powered by the other.

But what if my problem is I'm struggling with comparing myself to my real peers who are my age, not random social media influencers? I get how the latter is unfair, but I don't get how the former is nearly as "unfair" when I went to the same schools as them and knew them for roughly a decade. I literally got left behind by all of my friends. To the point that I'm not even sure how good of friends we were. But they don't suffer from the emotional and psychological issues that I have. They don't have problems with relationships. They're moving into their own places with their significant others. They go out and have fun doing all kinds of different shit while the only thing I have energy for is video games (which aren't even fun anymore) and anime / RU-vid. They can drink alcohol, or partake in some other drugs, without it being a problem. They're in their mid twenties if not younger than me, and doing way better than in me in every metric... I simply cannot handle people who are succeeding and getting all of the things that I want, and living the life that I want, but I can't because I'm intrinsically fucked up or something. It makes me want to die.

Powerful stuff here. I'm far past middle age and growing up, you had so few people to compare to or with. You could visit neighbor's houses and compare what you had to what they had. You had family you would/could do that with. Now, it's the whole world. What a massive difference.

I struggle with comparison because my entire life, other people compared me to my peers. I was the ADHD kid, then the depression kid. It was always "Everyone else can do it, why can't you?"

Nobody is superior, nobody is inferior, but nobody is equal either. People are simply unique, incomparable. You are you, I am I.

December was a very dark month for me; I’ve been struggling to find a job and simply felt forgotten by the people I considered my friends. But what triggers me the most is that I have two friends who I constantly compare to because we work in the same field and I just feel like a failure for not being able to keep a job for the past 3 years when they even have 3 jobs at the same time. But what hurt me the most was 2 weeks ago that one of them told me they got an interview into a company I’ve applied in the past. I lost my mind over that information. Of course I was happy for them but the fact that they managed to get an interview when they have so many other things in their lives that they aren’t quite actively looking for another job and meanwhile the ONLY THING I DO EVERY DAY is to apply to jobs and practice my skills to enter a specific industry… I lost my mind, to the point of feeling useless, worthless and not even deserving to exist anymore. They are 4 years younger than me, I started working slightly earlier and we worked on the same company for a while. But when I got fired back on 2020, they got to stay longer, and even almost was about to get a second job at the same time. Meanwhile I was struggling in all aspects of my life. I can’t help but to keep comparing myself to them, we basically work on the same thing and yet they are the one who get everything while for me seems like no matter how hard I try, no one notice.

Man this is my main problem, I like to think I don't care what people think about me but I do. I care a lot. It's the things I can't change mainly that gets me

I actually sometimes feel like it keeps me from trying to improve certain things... For example, i might think, that im scared of trying to learn something new because I know other people that are wayyy better than me already at it... and i dont really know where to go from here to fix this problem... I think it might be a problem with procrasinating tho im not sure :(

Thank you for making this. I realized a lot about myself.

I feel like the school system unfortunately supports the system of selfdestructing upward comparison. I don‘t know about schools in other countries, but in Germany teachers will give you the statistics of every test, so you can see, how many students got which grade. I never had the impression that this was meant to be motivational. It was alsways like „you got a C, but 15 others had a B or an A, so you did not do well“ or „you got a C, but only four others got a B or an A, so you were actually oretty good“. We are trained to live in a system, where you are only good when you are better than others. We learn to see people who are better that us as a thread, not an inspiration. I never heard people in my classes say „oh, this student is so good, I want to be like that“. In opposite, people tried to bring good students down by saying stuff like „oh yes but she also does nothing but studying“. I really do think that our upbringing (at least in Germany) plays a huge part in how we compare ourselves to others in our later life.

Dr K. This is the cheat code I have been looking for to break my comparison fueled anxiety that sometimes gets to the point of paralysis. Thank you so much for the work you do. I am studying to be a Psychologist myself and you are an inspiration. I hope to one day repay the help you have given me by helping others.

This helped me learn a lot about myself as someone who compares himself all the time to others which has led me to waste my time on things I am not even interested in just so I can feel like I am better than them at that particular thing to satisfy my ego, thanks a lot doc

Love this. I’ve always loved that quite “comparison is the thief of joy.” It really does effect your mental health. That’s part of the reason why I’m barely on social media and it’s actually easy for me cause I was never big on social media anyway.

A timely video. I'm not/can't provide a complete picture but here's my problem. My dream is to become a content creator of a field, and my most severe trigger of sadness is seeing someone younger than me already at where I want to be at maybe a few years. I know for a truth, that it is not a fair comparison because: My parents told me this dream was garbage back when I was a kid, and I feel threatened to fulfill their academic demands of me because I've seen how angry they were at me even just by playing games longer than I was supposed too. What if I say I'm going to just do the bare minimum of my studies and spend the rest of my time and energy on this dream that they call a beggar's profession? Now as an adult with some savings I finally feel like I'm can break those chains and start, because we all only live once. I wish I can have a counter measurement to reduce this subconscious comparison which fucks up my mind for the day so I can focus more energy on improving rather than picking up my corpse.

This was probably one of the best videos I've seen from you so far. I could relate way too well to this and hearing it was like a wake up call. Thank you for this.

1:25 hits home. I started going on walks at my local beach to disconnect for a bit. You know what I see? A fuckton of happy couples while I'm there alone lmao. The comparison doesn't just stop because it's offline.

Dude i just love the mix of scientific perspective and wisdom you’r sharing with us. Thx so much for your work!

It is something I've had to combat on my own, and honestly I consider myself lucky for even getting that opportunity. It's all thanks to the fact that I've sort of matured while being in this highly competitive/harsh community of creators (hobby level designers). Taking a few months long break was the one thing that really helped me rethink why I kept comparing myself. It's liberating once you find the solution, now the challenge is to keep it up and not go back to those toxic ways of thinking.

We appreciate your hard work and effort. Happy Holidays.

I developed body image issues from comparison.

I think that stuff about the ego is huge. Like that applies to a lot of stuff and I'm hoping it'll be useful for me to catch myself trying to validate negative emotions, thinking that's all I can do and even what I _should_ do.

The part where you talk about validating your current state or self image by comparing to others and by looking for an explanation just to so your mind rests in peace with the logic that confirms everything that happend. Sometimes I have thought about it when trying to understand other people´s problems, but strangely enough never though about my own issues in that way. Thank you!

+1 insight. Thank you Dr.K!

Awesome informational video. The copping balance and everything with the ego were nicely articulated! You could say something about forgiveness, once you hurt your ego how to overcome the emotion and forgive yourself so you can instead of diminishing your esteem be able to set up right your "ego compass " for the right upward behavior move that follows.

What perfect timing, for the last couple weeks i have been thinking about how my parents comparing me to my friends during school has a correlation to me comparing myself to pretty much every single person i see in real life and on the internet. I have gotten a little bit better at realising how unhealthy it is but it's hard to not make awkward conversation when you're putting some people on a pedestal because you think they're better than you.

I think I understand the message. What I find hard however, is finding a good balance. It is true, comparing yourself to someone with ten or even a hundred times the experience of oneself is not fair. But, I think one must also not lose track of whats possible and what the elite looks like when aiming for greatness. Its just very very tough to combine these two aspects.

You are a gem Dr K, thankyou for all that you do to help people, you have helped me in so many ways.

Comparison has been a bane to my existence, in a bi-directional way. I often try to do constructive upward comparisons. When I can't figure out how to do it, that's when things go wrong. Asking for advice is often met with "stop comparing yourself, you're fine". I've come to learn that just asking your friends is not a stable strategy. You gotta ask the coaches and the veterans. On the flipside. When I am good or (even worse) the best at something, lofty expectations are given to me. I can't ever fall below that bar, or else I'm given crap for being so easily defeated. These were rarely words said I'm my head. Often it's the winner putting me down. After a while those words start to live in my head, and It sucks.

I've waited over 16 months for something like this video to come out, thank you so much Dr. K ❤️

it was actually helpful, you are truly a genius to be able to articulate so well. i will manifest these ideas you've bestowed on me.

My mother constantly delivers these comparisons to my life. She’ll read about some young pilot who juggled two prestigious schools, became doctor on the side and had several kids in the process and then says “See? Easy.” Then she expects me to “get it” and immediately become super-efficient-never-depressed person that crushes life.

Thank you a lot, Doc! Amazing content

I feel like this is something we all know instinctually. At the same time, it's genuinely hard to escape the prodigious amount of competition in everything in the modern world (dating, job market, social media, etc) so the common guy will be stuck in a loophole of comparing himself to others unless he makes an actual effort to detach himself from these things

Sometimes we even subconsciously choose to make a comparison with a certain person even though deep inside we know that's unfair only for us to NOT make any changes and keep us in our familiar, comfortable place. Or in other words: we pick the wrong people to compare to just to have an excuse to be stuck. Or in even fewer words: self sabotage.

I really appreciate this video. The vast majority of my life I’ve compared myself to other people and really hurt myself using drugs, alcohol, negative self talk, starvation of love, etc to really anchor in self hatred. I’m trying so hard to Love me and allow grace and forgive for myself for treating me so poorly. It’s not easy, but it is doable.

It is definitely true when you are not feeling great that comparisons come in. Comparing was never something I did, but it has happened on a few occasions the last years. They usually pass when I think of the ways their situation is different to mine.

Very enlightening video. Thank you! Your explanation about social media really echoed with one of my biggest life lesson opportunity I got. When I was a student in Boston, I had a MIT student in microbiology as roommate in Boston. He was so damn impressive! I compared myself a lot to him as I was ambitious to be the best student possible. But living with him under the same roof revealed to me all sacrifices he had to do in his life that you can't see the rest of the time. He is an expert in one specific domain but it was at the expense of his social life, life skills like cooking, his free time, his emotions etc. So many important things I felt he was missing to experience for just one title in a prestigious school. After this day, I stopped myself comparing to him and I understood that every strong success in one domain comes with sacrifices on other aspect of your life (which you don't see on social media).

Isn’t this guy such a hero? We should get this psycho stuff taught in school. I’m learning so much by watching his video’s!!

Good video. I think the content about limiting comparisons and how to do it sounds reasonable. It also feels like having the knowledge also requires doing the work.

I love this one!! Shared it with the person playing games next to me!

Thanks, Dr K, for this video - me and my friend applied to the same super selective university and recently we found out the results - he was accepted, I was rejected. It hurt a lot but I'm wishing him a good time in that university & moving on to other good choices for myself!

Excellent and helpful content. Genuinely, thank you

I found this ESPECIALLY. I would always compare myself to others and others expectations and it was not healthy for my mental. I found this out pretty fast (like 4 months) so I was able to get out of the state I was heading towards.

Brilliant. you're always spot on and i love the humour mixed in and the part about the ants lmfao

It's so hard to avoid going on online when you are a content creator or an artist. You have to check what's hot what's new to make a new content and you will have to "mingle" or check up on other content creators/artists to build connection or learn what they've done right to improve yourself. Most days I just fall into a hole of comparison that hurts me more than motivates or inspires me. I've asked so many people how they deal with this issue and a lot of their answers (i.e. "just stop comparing yourself you are already great as you are!" to ""you draw better than me!") don't really click with me. But that kind of makes sense now because everyone's different and I need to ask myself why like you said more than asking others for the specific solutions they have for themselves

I think in the age of social media it's also almost always a very unfair comparison. The person you admire for their relationship likely won't publicly post about how they had a petty argument last night or all the small things they dislike about their partner. The good cook won't post the meal they accidentally burnt or tell you how they added too much salt to the dish. An artist won't show you all the discardes works, or even how their work looked in the early phases before they polished it up. Social media is so incredibly curated, so people often appear to be doing a lot better than they actually are, while you yourself don't get the perfect polished version of your life, you have to go through all the steps, all the problems, all the failures that other people don't tell you about, so that evokes a feeling of "These people are all doing so well, what am doing wrong?" when actually they'll often face a lot of similar struggles to what you're going through

so many of his videos are really helping me in life

This video came on my recommended at such a perfect time. Especially within the last few years, comparison has been an area where I've struggled. Since birth, I've had mild CP which effects my left arm and leg. Growing up, particularly around 16 and onward, it was extremely easy for me to notice how other girls were gaining their independence whereas my journey was slower. Until recently, I finally had an epiphany: Why am I comparing myself to able-bodied young women? Which has since morphed into, why should I compare myself at all? I've realized that (however cliche it might sound) that everyone is truly on their own path. It has been comforting to me to remember that the "right" and "wrong" timing doesn't really exist. Accepting that this is the way my life looks, getting rid of bitterness and comparison, resting and not striving... Have really helped me look at comparison in a completely different way. Especially towards independence. I have caught myself comparing either up or down, and it's wild the effect that both have. I'm not usually one who posts comments often, but I hoped that my experience with comparison given my life situation might encourage others.

This is extremely educational! Thank you

I have a huge problem comparing myself to others. I'm insecure, and I don't want to sound like I'm blaming my mom but as a kid she would compare me to my cousin every single day. Telling me my cousins achievements and asking why I haven't gotten honor roll or why I'm not getting A's like my cousin. I grew to hate my cousin, I want my moms approval but talking my cousin years later, her upbringing wasn't as good as I thought. I stopped hating her but I grew a resentment towards my mom because I still, even to this day, feel like she doesn't approve of me and not just her, I feel like I need to prove myself to everyone so they'll accept me. I still have trouble accepting myself

Thank you. This has been helpful

as somebody pursuing an art minor having only started making art seriously as a college student, i find comparisons both helpful and hurtful at the same time. when i compare my work to somebody elses from a specific project or assignment i feel much worse. when comparing my art overall to somebody else's overall art, it inspires me to improve to reach that level of mastery.

Literally had a self talk this morning about how comparison thoughts ruin my mood so fast and how useless they are.

Omg the "bucket" thing lol, I'll tell people, "thanks I got it at Walmart," and watch their face change lol. I do shop at Walmart a lot, but for me it's a good way to see what they think lol

This was very helpful, I can see myself in many of the examples.

I think downward comparisons help me cope emotionally whenever I am depressed, I just watch To Catch a Predator on RU-vid. Seeing Preds/Pedos get busted makes me feel better about my life instantly!

Thank you for this!

Great video, I find myself comparing myself to others quite often in both directions. I’ve always seen downward comparisons as a tool to develop gratitude but didn’t realize it could be used as a coping strategy. Like if I feel shitty about relatively minor health issues, I find that myself saying “Thank God Im not someone with cancer” or something along those lines but it very well serves as a cope. I suppose there’s a line between gratitude and downward comparison but idk.

I think I constantly compare up to the point of discouragement. Feasibility bias. Nice to hear someone talk about this the way you do. Thanks

Oh god, you got to the "people asking me whaty job is" part, and I was immediately like "Hell yes that's how I feel!" I've never had any job I think of as "worthy of respect," even though I'd never pass that kind of judgement on anyone else. Retail worker, delivery driver...there've only been 2 jobs I wasn't embarrassed to tell anyone. And I realize that's silly because again, if someone told ME they worked those jobs, I wouldn't think any differently about them at all. I suppose that could be because we're on the same level, but it's 1 am and I'm not sure I have the energy to go that deep. 😛

Thanks, great info!

This is true comparison will ruined your mental health, my parents always condition my mind to compare myself to others, as a result I been grow shy, insecure and have poor self-esteem. Comparison is a technique used by most parents to motivate you and to control you, until you used to make all you decision in life is based on comparison on what people lifes success would be... It takes 32 years of my life to break the generational cursed of toxic parenting. I very thankful to my live in partner she is the one the reason Ive open my mind about my true life situation, If she didnt came into my life, Ive been insane now and grow old immature.

I believe downward comparisions can be more than a coping mechanism. When you are learning a subject it might help to determine and recap how far you've come and what mistakes you made.

2 seconds in, I can already tell this video exactly about what I've been saying for years. Comparing yourself to others never ends well for you.

Again, the timing of these videos is incredible :O

needed this, thanks

I think there is a time and place for comparisons, and learning to know when they are useful and when they aren't would be a better way to go about things than "comparison = ego = bad".

stop! i swear every video you upload applies to my current situation and everything is all i needed to hear

You’re awesome. Great video.

I love when Dr. K incorporates elements of nonduality in his content :)

great video!

My brain always talked like: "If i am smart/good enough to be capable of doing it, why aren't you?" (i had like -10 self esteem) That was like the default comparison in my mind.

I think this video has really focus on comparison around skills and with different people. My real issue is to compare myself with people on my friend groups, or compare around vital milestone in which we are in, or personality traits (I wanna be talkative as them, or flirt like them…). It feels like this type of comparison will require a different approach. A video on that could be really useful.

I agree. You have to be yourself. We can all learn from each other.

I haven’t started the video yet but just the title alone caught my attention and right away I think about how my parents always compared me to others. Among other things it did not help my self esteem. I made it a priority for my daughters not to have the same experiences.

Loving this video and chanel!

An Issue I have with this or at least in understanding is sure none of us are under the same circumstances, but a lot of us are competing over the same/similar resources. Money, Attention, Attraction, influence, and in some areas success. Sure the Comparisons tend to be unfair, but lesson that taught allot is "life isn't fair". Life doesn't care if they were given a bad start or squandered a good one, if enough people are better and/or show up soon at carving out a spot in a niche that they considered to be a part of they won't find success in said niche. I'm just putting this out here to challenge my perceptions.

The way this video came out right when I needed it 😅

Perfect timing as always

I don’t care about not comparing, I want to know what I can do to not keep making the mistakes that make me regret and harm those around me. I don’t care about my own well being, I just want to not hurt those around me, and it seems everything I do to try and make my life more stable only hurts those around me.t that’s where comparison comes in for me, I look back on my past and have nothing but regret, and look ahead and see nothing but struggles. Comparing is all that’s kept me going, knowing that there are those worse off and I have to keep trying.

Thank you for this video bro

never stop doing this I love your videos

It’s obvious to anyone who has spent enough time on social media that comparison within the ego is detrimental to one’s happiness. It is a cheap replacement for self-improvement and self-worth. We see people “better” than us and hope to be like them, only to feel incapable of having what others achieve. Or we witness those “worse” than ourselves in an attempt to feel good in the moment. I experience this especially when I’m depressed and fall into an almost addictive cycle of comparison where I find short bursts of gratification only to experience long periods of dread and insecurity afterwards. The best way to combat this cycle is to notice when your mind is making comparisons and to shoot them down immediately. Understand that we are all unique beings interacting within an obscure world and comparison is unfair and unhelpful. The issue with dismantling a comparative complex in an increasingly comparative society, however, is that much of our reward systems are built on a foundation of ego. So in pursuit of non-comparison, my subconscious’ justification for this dismantlement is the reward of judging others in their inability to not compare. This is an ironic paradox that I am privy of falling into. I judge myself for judging others, and then in turn judge others who do the same, and then I judge myself again for judging them for judging. In order to break this cycle, I must find a different reward system. To truly remove unhealthy comparison from my mind I must change the justification. Comparison is unhealthy and depressing. Comparison causes me pain. Me feeling pain is bad because I am a decent soul; worthy of happiness. So it seems the core of my complex is my lack of love for myself. I must love myself and truly want what’s best for me in order to circumvent my pain. Once this is achieved, my systems will follow suit and adjust in service to my health, not fleeting pleasure. I have crafted this rationalization. Now, I must strive for habitual nature instead. We are social creatures. I crave connection and sociability. The root of this compulsion should be to experience joy, not to feel better than others or to make others feel better. I must imagine a state where I am all alone and yet I still find peace. Once I achieve this, I can begin rebuilding a social circle of people who make me happy. This is where it gets tricky. How do you decide who to trust and be friends with independent of comparison? I can’t be friends with anyone, unless I wish to be betrayed. Don’t hate people for their differences, but find what kind of ideology and behavior to be most supportive. Rationality over empiricism: Worldly belief based in evidence over intuition Loyalty: Friends to immoral enemies are no friends at all Trust: do they use you? Do they lie to you? What promises are not kept? Open-mindedness: Those who judge expression/identity are doomed to judge you also Morality: Most things are forgivable, some things are not Comfortability: Do they warm your soul?

it helps when i compare my old self to the me now, i leaned new thing and everyday i try to learn a new thing to improve myself and most importantly be better than my old self

I was supposed to curl up, I was supposed to back down, I was supposed to fade, evaporate into the background.... I was supposed to never be nothing, but I made it to something, I knew I could do it, I'll prove it!