We are coming up to that time of year when resolutions are encouraged and this can sometimes lead to a desire to fix ourselves and becoming dissatisfied with our life:
We are born with only one obligation – to be completely who we are. Yet how much of our time is spent comparing ourselves to others, dead and alive? This is encouraged as necessary in the pursuit of excellence. Yet a flower in its excellence does not yearn to be a fish, and a fish in its unmanaged elegance does not long to be a tiger. But we humans find ourselves always falling into the dream of another life. Or we secretly aspire to the fortune or fame of people we don’t really know. When feeling badly about ourselves, we often try on other skins rather than understand and care for our own. Yet when we compare ourselves to others, we see neither ourselves nor those we look up to. We only experience the tension of comparing, as if there is only one ounce of being to feed all our hungers.
Mark Nepo, The Book Of Awakening
Mindfulbalance 
Reblogged this on Running with Buddha and commented:
It is easy to say “don’t compare” but much harder to discipline our mind to follow suit. Mark Nepo’s writing from the Karl Duffy’s blog illustrates this point. Particularly, how distracted we become from the “tension of comparing.”