A few months ago, I wrote a piece on compassion and reflected that we as a society are not compassionate 100% of the time, nor should we be, however we should be more often than we are.

In the further discovery of compassion it is important to realize that self-compassion is equally as important as compassion. We live in a society that promotes the sense of having to continually thrive in being ‘better than average’. Although it is fine to strive for personal greatness, we should not be comparing ourselves to others.

By comparing ourselves to others, we only set ourselves up for disappointment as it is impossible to be better than the average at all aspects of life at every single moment.

By decreasing this reliance of being above average, we can begin to accept our inherent traits as acceptable. If instead we view our traits, good or bad, as acceptable, there is a very high likelihood that we shall see a dramatic decrease in stress, depressive thoughts, and an increase in happiness.

Comparing ourselves to the lives of photo-shopped, over-publicized celebrities inflates our view of what the “average” is, and deflates our self-image. Society will not adjust the way we think of ourselves. Although the general public loves to be concerned with pop-culture and celebrity lives, we must be cautious about how this affects our perception of the world.