I don’t know the statistics on how many people wish they had someone else’s life, but I’m guessing many have felt this. How many of us have wanted someone else’s circumstances? How often have we thought she’s so lucky for having something in contrast to ourselves or I wish I have what he has. We want their position and privileges. We wish we had someone else’s success. We want to be the next so-and-so. We want another’s lifestyle and living conditions. We desire our friend’s social and leisurely life. Maybe we’d rather have a different past. What if we were born to different parents? We may regret choices we made that committed us to certain circumstances. Maybe we second guess choosing the person we married or regret having had children too early and wonder what life would be like if we chose differently. What if we chose a different career? If only certain factors of our lives were different, our lives might be closer to what we perceive as the ideal. We compare our lives to others’. If only we could do life over… There’s always someone else’s life, or some aspect of it, that looks better than ours. Envy is a non-satiating hunger that leads to starvation.
An important point about your life is that this is your story. Someone else’s life is not your story. But why is it that I’m still not married while my peers are? Why can’t I have children, like the majority of normal people in society? Why was my past so painful and why couldn’t I have been born into better conditions? One of the greatest realities in life is of the billions of people in human history you’re the only you. The fact that there is not another you in this world presently or in all of history past or ever will be in the future is a miracle. You are a genuinely unique design. You didn’t come from a clone, off a production line, or a generic mould. You’re an unrepeated person. Making a unique person every time is inefficient, but it is original. This outrageous uniqueness means that you are a creature infused with love. It means a lot of care, inspirational thought, and wonder was poured into the making of you. Since there is only one of you, you are the only one who can live your story. Nobody else can live it for you and you can’t live somebody else’s. From the moment you were formed in the womb, your story began – the time period and economic status you were born into, who your parents are, what ethnicity you are, your genetic make-up, your temperament, and all the baggage and blessings of your circumstances (Psalm 139). Your story is both your privileged right and your sacred responsibility. You have the wonderful opportunity to live your story well. The trials, tragedies, and triumphs are part of a powerful story. What are you called to be and do in life? What is your specific place in the world? How can you turn your tragedies into triumphs as part of the beauty of your story? When you entered the world, you didn’t replace someone else, and when you’re gone, no one will replace you. Your story will not be repeated. Your story is not just handed to you; you must own it. Your story is your inherent opportunity. It is part of your dignity as a human being. So we might bemoan aspects of our lives and wished our conditions were like somebody else’s. We might despise the cards we were dealt. And all the while, miss out on the story you were meant to live. Your journey involves exploration of beliefs, discovery of truths, finding beauty in the midst of ashes, healing from hurts, resurrecting from your deaths, and crossing from one chapter to next. Through the chapters of our lives, a wonder we’re meant to discover is that there is a loving Author who desires to orchestrate the good for those who love him, bringing about a glorious ending to conclude a uniquely wonderful story (Romans 8:28).
The greatest defeat is not the inability to achieve someone else’s life. It’s not living yours.
Brian See Chan 