You know when they say, when you laugh the whole world laughs with you but when you cry, you cry alone?

I hate it when these sayings kinda manifest in my life and I experience it first-hand. Especially the unhappy ones.

The world is a hard place.

The thing that I struggle with most is the competition. I’ve hated it since I was a child.

If I needed to prove I was better than someone else, I’d rather not participate. Why the need to even prove if I was better or worse than someone else? I mean, what is the point? What would I achieve knowing I wasn’t better than someone else? What would I achieve knowing I was?

I also read somewhere that once you achieved first place in something, the only way left was down. I had a friend who was always happy at being second best because she said she still had a place to go up from there.

Today, we live in a better place than we did when we were younger. We, as a people are starting to see that competition is not always necessary. If the competition is healthy, it may be okay but if it’s not healthy, it may not even be worth it.

I know it’s been said before, and it’s true – life isn’t a race!

Winning & losing are just two terms that temporarily assists in boosting a person’s ego and pride or hastens another’s transition into depression.

I don’t think these should be our only options. They shouldn’t even be our options if the situation was dire.

I personally feel that the only way the terms “being better” should be used is in comparison to how we were yesterday. The only competition should be with us, at improving who we are every day, at becoming better versions of ourselves, of becoming happier versions of ourselves.

In this process, we can all choose to be kind, respectful, loving, uplifting, strengthening, hopeful, helpful, and so much more. With our own selves, and with those around us.

We have so many more options to choose from this way, options that do less harm or no harm at all.

We need a little more hope & love in our lives. We need more reasons to be joyful than sad. We need more reasons to celebrate than mourn. We need more reasons to smile.

And as human beings, we can do that – we can be the reason for someone’s smile. Why can’t we zero in on that for a change?