THEIR JOURNEY IS NOT MINE By Dennis Armfield
Every man is keeping score. Most will never admit it.
I’ve been doing it since I was a kid. I just never called it that.
At school it was grades, then sport, then who had the girlfriend, then who had the job. In my twenties it was who was about who was getting a game, who was earning more, building a better business. In my thirties it became who was a better husband, a better father, who had it more “together.” The scoreboard never went away. It just changed sports.
I thought that instinct would fade once I started surrounding myself with men who were doing the work. Real conversations, real honesty, no performance for the camera. But even in those rooms, I’ve watched comparison creep in. Not loudly. Quietly. Men opening up about their marriage, their body, their business, all while running an unspoken scoreboard against each other without ever naming it.
That was the moment that humbled me. Not comparing myself to strangers on Instagram. Comparing myself to men I respect, in a room built for the opposite.
Here’s what I’ve had to sit with. Comparison never tells you the truth about the other person. It tells you a story about what you’re afraid you’re missing. We create open loops and 9/10 fill them with the negative. Most of the time, we’re not really measuring ourselves against each other. We’re measuring ourselves against a version of the so-called “having it together” man. That we make up in our head, the version that, so often, none of us has.
Someone once said something to me I haven’t been able to shake: “Their journey is not mine; they walk in a different pair of shoes.”
Obvious when you write it down. Almost impossible to live by when you’ve spent your whole life keeping score without ever naming it as that.
So, this is where I’ve landed. My only real competition is who I was yesterday. Not the man next to me. Not the man who looks further along. Just me, a year ago, a month ago, yesterday and whether I moved.
If you’re a man reading this, I’d bet you already know which comparison runs quietly in the background of your own life. If you’re a woman reading this, I am sure you have similar stories (I can’t speak to those).
What’s yours? Money, body, marriage, business, parenting, or something else nobody’s ever asked you about directly. Share it in the comments, even if it’s uncomfortable… Especially if it’s uncomfortable.
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