I’ll be honest and say I have experienced some lower emotional states these past few weeks, as people sometimes do. However, I learned that even amidst my desolation, people still wish they could have aspects of my life just as I wish I could have aspects of theirs.

I think the majority of people can relate to  the situation I’ve been playing out myself: scrolling through TikTok or Instagram and seeing pretty people with pretty lives and thinking to myself, “I wish that I just had their (insert trait here).” Besides the point that social media lives are almost always glamourized in some way, it’s just plain silly to wish to be exactly like someone else.

In Steve Ortmeier’s AP Biology class about a week ago, we were learning about genetics and the probabilities of having certain traits: how you’re built on the inside and outside. The fact is, you are not one in 7 billion people, you are one in 70 trillion chances of being alive like you are. Just to put that in perspective, Earth in its whole “life” has not had 70 trillion humans in total yet. The probability of you being where you are right now, looking how you look, thinking how you think, living how you live is phenomenal. So why do we still think we need to have someone else’s good grades, popularity, blonder hair, tanner skin, bigger butt, or smaller waist?

Everyone wants to better themselves. We are taught from a young age that striving for obtainable goals is healthy. Without a desire to progress, we will never be better, happier, healthier. Where the line falls is where people cast unobtainable wishes and put people on a pedestal, while not taking into consideration the fact that those people might want to be someone else too. 

While you’re thinking that you want to be someone else, they’re probably thinking that they want to be you. Everyone puts the good parts of themselves out there, and they try to hide the bad, so of course it is easy to wish to have someone else’s  good. But understand and remember that all good comes with underlying bad. 

Each of us are completely different, down to our blood. Our brains work differently, our hearts love differently and our bodies and faces are all unique and custom-designed for us. Wish not to be someone else because they seem better than you, but wish to be better for yourself because you know your own distinctive potential.