I have always thought that one of the best ways to find out how I am doing in some area is to compare myself to others doing the same thing. I mean, how else do you do this? This just seems like a simple, obvious truth, the way the world works, the way things are.

But the other obvious truth about comparing myself to others is that when it comes to creating inspiration and dedication, this way of keeping score doesn’t work for me.

I used to be a big fish in a small pond, the best harmonica player around. This made me feel good. It also made me smug and lazy.

Then I started to go to harmonica conventions and the satisfaction of being a big fish in a small pond was gone forever.

I get depressed when I compare myself to some of my friends who are better than I ever will be in some areas of playing the harmonica.  Especially if they are a lot younger than I am. Which seems to be happening more and more often these days.

I (re)discovered the answer to this problem of how to cope with the fact that no matter what I do, somebody else is better at it than I am. The answer has to do with the one exception to this rule.

I found my answer in a post by a friend of mine, Pat Obryan. I am going to give you a link to this blog. I hope you read it. Reading this post (and using the ideas in it) has made me feel a        thousand pounds lighter. This is the best article I have ever read on this topic. It cleared up my mind almost instantly.

In my next post I will tell you the three main ideas I got from reading Pat’s article. I would rather not mess with your digestion of his thoughts by going on about my ideas right now.

Here is the link:

http://www.patobryan.com/blog/?p=1387 The name of the post is “Choosing Your Own Target”