I am that I am.

We all hear about "Not comparing yourself to others" and that "comparing yourself is the thief of joy". To be honest, I agree and it's strange that I am contradicting myself because I compare myself A LOT. The more I looked into it, the more I realized that we have a natural tendency to compare ourselves. It's a human thing to do. The issue is that we tend to be very excessive over comparing ourselves to others to the point where it takes a toll on us. For example, we are demotivated to see someone's success because we believe we can't reach the goal they are in. We all have jealousy. Big or small. Even where I am at right now, I am still jealous that many people I know that got into big tech companies like Microsoft. To get more context, I want to share a story with you. Story Time Back in the day, I remember it was the year of the ACT. For those who don't know: It's a Standardized test that is needed for the college admissions to determine if you are admitted to their program. I remember I got a national average of 21 as my composite score and I was proud of the score I got since it's the national average during that time. However, I remember the day where my friends talked about the ACT. The most common thing I heard was: "Oh I got a 30" "I got a 32" "Man I got a 35, it was sooo easy" Hearing that makes me feel not only bummed out, but felt left out. I was feeling that I wasn't smart enough to be in the group. What's worse is that they got accepted into colleges and programs that are well known. Then they start boasting about their accomplishments. I felt like I am the odd-one-out because of my scores and their accomplishments I could not match. Why am I Talking about this? Looking back and knowing where they are at now, I am proud of who I become today. It's not that they have fallen downhill (they are still successful), but the route they have taken that I definitely could not follow. For example, on GitHub, many people fill up their contribution graphs to the