Everyone you meet is a knot where two strings intersect. Sometimes these strings twist around each other for a while and it's very natural to judge your path wi

Everyone you meet is a knot where two strings intersect. Sometimes these strings twist around each other for a while and it's very natural to judge your path with another. In the very short term this might even be accurate, but then strings diverge and go on towards infinite more collisions. Any comparison of more than the briefest timeframe is meaningless. You don't steer your path as much as influence the variables that determine direction. You do this through both action and inaction. 1. If you want to impact your path, choose intent over accident 2. The direction of your current vector is more important than your life's total displacement 3. Life is lived when strings intersect, with each knot influencing future direction 4. There are no cartesian coordiantes for your final goal. You define an ideal as your target and make progress towards it; both change over time. More pragmatic: spend some time with your former colleague, reconnect, enjoy their company. Find out what they've been doing with their entire life, not just their job title. Realize that maybe you're focusing on a single dimension in a forest of many, and perhaps your head-to-head comparison isn't as relevant (or important) as you initially thought.