Why do we worry about the wrong things?

This is a picture of George Derbyshire. He's a super bloke who runs the National Federation of Enterprise Agencies. He also has a rather impressive beard. George and I both attended a conference last week and I could not help but compare his established facial growth with my own, rather newer version. In any competition, George would beat me hands down.

But only after accepting that I had grown a rather inferior version, did it strike me that on top, I have a full head of hair and George has gone bald. In other words, if you compare our whole heads and not just our faces, I've got more hair than he has.

This set me thinking. Why did I beat myself up about my less dense beard when actually I'm better off overall? What other examples are there in life where I and perhaps you, compare just one facet of ourselves that we're sensitive about and ignore the fact that in other respects, we're actually better off?

My conclusion is this: when you start comparing your performance with that of those around you, step back and take a wider view. You might be pleasantly surprised to find that when you stop focusing on detail, you find that you're actually better off than you first thought!