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Do you tend to compare yourself to others? Do you constantly feel pressured to conform to certain standards, to fit yourself in a perfect mold as told by society? Today's episode is about our unique path in life. Click below to listen! :) Starting from this episode, I'll be adding transcripts that you can find below each episode. Today's transcript can be found below. What do you guys think? Do you listen to the audio or only read the transcript? Let me know via the contact form. Our Unique Path in Life [Transcript] Hey everyone! Welcome to the Personal Excellence Podcast Episode 12! I'm Celestine Chua from PersonalExcellence.co. First off, I'd like to apologize for the intermittent uploads for the podcast, and even the YouTube channel. A big reason is that I've just been struggling to find a stable and a quiet place to record my audio podcasts and YouTube videos. That's why you can see that I haven't been doing any video for the past two years. And the podcast... yeah. I've also been really slow in the updates. In the meantime, I'm just trying to find opportunities where I can record new podcasts and speak to you guys. I really hope that in time to come, I'll be able to record more episodes on a regular basis. So currently I'm experimenting with a new podcast format. If you're an existing listener, you probably know that The PE Podcast episodes tend to be between 30 to 45 minutes long, with a series of tips on the topic itself. Now, the new podcast format that I am experimenting with consists more of short-form topics, and in each episode I'll be focusing on sharing one big idea. Let me know what you guys think at personalexcellence.co/contact/! I always love to hear your feedback! Today's topic is on our unique path in life. For all of us growing up in today's world, I'm sure you see comparisons abound all the time. There are comparisons with grades when you're in school... coming from teachers, parents, and even your friends, your schoolmates. Many people are often comparing grades, like who's got better grades, more achievements, etc. Then in life... you see people comparing things like the age people marry. This is very common in Asia. After you are married, there are comparisons in terms of the house, apartment you live in. After that, comparisons in terms of kids, who just had a kid, how many kids people have. Career-wise, too — like who got what job, how much someone is earning. So there are just these comparisons all the time. And it's really subtle too. Sometimes, it's not even obvious when the comparisons are being done. This is a phenomenon known as Keeping up with the Joneses, where there's this constant comparison with the person next to you. It could be our neighbors. It could be a comparison with your schoolmates, classmates, colleagues, friends, the people who grew up with you, or even people online. Online, everyone feels like they're just next to us. We have Facebook, Instagram, and all that, and we can see what people are doing in just one click. So it's increasingly easy to see what people are doing. With just a simple click, a simple message, a simple look, you can glance through people's timeline and immediately see what they have been up to. And obviously, most people would just put their highlights in life. These days, there are countless apps, software to edit and present this perfect image online. So more and more, we're faced with this perfect imagery of people's lives. This increases this pressure to compare and wonder, Okay, why am I not at this level? Or if you are running an online business, it's so easy to be comparing with someone else's metrics. Followers, figures — all these are open for everybody to see. Or even number of comments, the feedback people are getting, and so on. Now, what I want to share here is to remember: when you are comparing with other people, when you are feeling bad and thinking, Oh this person has this! This person is walking down this perfect track in ...