All of these things are not like the others

There's a disease that's plaguing our generation today. It's killing dreams, self esteem and drive with one blow, and we refuse to stop it. We lie there; limp, as it consumes us, a look of hopelessness in our eyes. It's called Comparing Ourselves To Others.

It happened to me recently. I'd been thinking about moving to France next year, as one of my myriad post-graduation life solutions.

I was scrolling through au pair listings, starting to get excited about the idea. But then, I clicked over to Facebook and someone's status said, "Just got a job offer from [a big accounting firm]!!!" And then it hit me: What will all my friends be doing while I'm gone?

I could just picture it: Me, scrolling through their Facebooks frantically realizing that they were all thriving at real jobs, while I'd run away to France to become a babysitter. The thrill of the language, the culture and the new experience suddenly evaporated, replaced with the fear of being surpassed. My dreams seemed trivial, insignificant by comparison.

It's hard not to fall into this trap. With social media, we're exposed to people's every move, life decision and hair color change.

We know that most people are purposely posting pictures and statuses that make them look fun, attractive and successful, yet we still eat it up, berating ourselves for not attending the same party, having a similar job or even cooking such a delicious-looking meal.

We compare everything from the amount of "Likes" a friend has gotten on her profile picture to the glamorous internship a peer managed to secure post graduation.

The competitive culture we live in doesn't help either. We're taught that we have to look like models whose photographs have been edited into cartoons.

At Richmond, there are students have who have the money, connections and/or smarts to land them positions at top companies right out of college. Students who will never spend the hours we did on CareerBuilder sending out thousands of applications to jobs they didn't even want.

How can we ever feel good enough, confident in our own internal compass to navigate the right path?

My mom would say, "Just love yourself!" but obviously that's not as easy at it sounds.

The more viable solution is to work on letting go. Duck out of the comparison chokehold. Snap out of the habit of, when something good happens, immediately measuring your success or happiness with someone else's.

We have to accept that we'll never be anyone but ourselves. Ever. And that means that we'll never have some of the opportunities or traits that other people have. But, it also means we have a whole set of our own to work with, some that other people would die for.

Instead of spending our time paralyzed by envy of others, let's work on ourselves, so one day we're the ones worth envying.