Inside vs Outside

"Don't compare your inside with someone else's outside."This is one of the most powerful things I've been told. As I've shared it with others, I've seen a profound shift in their thinking.What does it mean?When we look at someone, we're looking at how someone presents themselves to the outside world. Even people we know very well are still often choosing what they do and don't share with us. No matter how much time we spend together, there are experiences they have that we weren't there for, internal decisions they made that we only saw the end results of.On the other hand, the insecure and judgmental voices in our heads know everything that we do and don't like about ourselves, all the places where we feel lacking or broken or less-than-others. We know every thought, idea, doubt, desire, falseness, truth, missed opportunity, lost moment, bad choice, lucky break - everything. The inside voice gets no filter.When we say "__ has it so together" or "___ doesn't have a hard time with it" or "I wish I were more like ____" etc, in almost every case (or maybe every case) we are making a comparison between someone else's public (often cleaned up) outside with our (messy in full view) inside.Don't compare your inside with someone else's outside. It's not a fair fight.