I have a confession to make. Actually, no. I have a statement to make. A confession makes is sound like I’m ashamed. I’m not ashamed of it. I am the worse roommate. Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not a bad roommate, but comparatively, I am the worse roommate.

For starters, I am messier than my roommate. Sometimes, I leave my stuff downstairs. I may go to bed without doing the dishes. I take up space. But it’s my apartment too.

I also stay up later than my roommate. She’s always in bed pretty early, and I stay up a little later. She usually gets up pretty early and is often ready before I am.

Lastly, I feel like my roommate is a lot healthier than me. She eats pretty well, and she is in the gym frequently. I try to join her when I can, but that doesn’t always happen.

But you know what? We work. We’ve done dishes for each other. We exercise together. We do some things together. But there are a lot of things we don’t do together. So yeah, overall, I may be the worse roommate, but I am by no means a bad one.

There are times when it is easy to feel inferior to someone else. I’m a competitive person, and I always put myself in competition to other people. But that’s not healthy. When I originally got the idea to write this blog post, I would’ve been like “life’s not a competition, yada yada”. But that’s kind of crappy advice. So yeah, life’s not a competition. But you know what else? My roommate keeps me in check. I don’t go to bed as late as I would with someone else as my roommate. There is hardly any junk food in our apartment. I’ve gotten closer to my goal of being in shape than ever before. Technically, it’s not a competition. But she inspires me to be better. And I keep her on track too. I do my best to understand the things of her major and help her out. I also keep her in check on things like time (I’m pretty good at planning when we need to leave for the bus and things like that). It may not be a “competition”, but it’s definitely improvement in both of our lives.

Maybe you’re like me. Maybe you find yourself feeling like you’re worse than someone else. Let me tell you something I’ve learned and am continuing to learn: it’s okay to feel inferior. You don’t have to be better than someone else. It’s okay to just be you. But, if you’re also like me and competitive, then the only person you need to be better than is yourself. Working out and exercising has led me to see changes in the shape of my body. I eat better. I work harder on my time management so I don’t have to be up so late all the time. I’m not the same person I used to be, and that’s the best feeling in the world.

So I’m proud to be the worse roommate. This just means I have more room to improve and grow. I have things I can work on in my life, and believe me, I am. I’m not the same person I was in high school. And you know what? That’s amazing to me. I’ve changed and learned and grown. But most importantly, I’ve improved.

My advice to you (besides everything else I’ve said): The only person you need to be better than is yourself. Work on doing you. Another thing: let yourself change. Improve your health, work on your life, and go after your goals. And be proud to be the worse person. Who you are matters, but how perfect you are does not matter. It’s okay not to have your life completely together. It’s okay to have flaws. It’s okay to need and want to improve. As long as you are doing it for you, and not to be better than everyone else. Just be better than who you used to be.

I know this post is a little shorter and a little different than anything I’ve talked about recently, but this is what has been on my mind. I feel it is more important to be honest with all of you and myself than to write something else.

Let me know if you have any thoughts, questions or comments!
Love,