We want friends and colleagues to experience accomplishments, to get ahead, and to succeed - but very often it is near impossible not to compare ourselves. And when we do, it often leads to disappointment.
The best advice I've heard on this subject is - throw the measuring stick away. Don't look at others to compare successes but look at your own goals and compare your accomplishments to what you want, not to what others do.
The dark road of comparison starts early on when we are in school. My daughter followed my son by two grades and while he was exceptional in math and science, my daughter's attributes were on the creative side. Unfortunately, most of her teachers constantly compared the two, leaving her uninspired and frustrated. Years later, both enjoy very successful careers - him in mathematics and she owning a wedding company. There was never any reason to compare these two siblings, because there was no comparison to be found - they were each their own person then and still are today.
The same is true in so many areas of life. We are constantly faced with ways to compare ourselves, but by doing so, we only find that it robs us of the joy of our own accomplishments. For each comparison we make to someone who has something better, we can also find someone who has it harder. There is no gold metal to be won in the game of comparison.
We are all on our own road- make sure to Ignore the detours of comparison and instead use hard work and concrete goals which will inevitably be the tools to lead you to the success you desire.