You’re human – forgive yourself. Everyone’s human – see it

Even the people you admire most are just people, full of human failings as well as strengths and admirable qualities.

And that’s okay.

If you put someone on a pedestal, you could also say that you lower yourself in comparison. You dig yourself a pit and stand there, looking up.

Is that healthy?

If you’re idolizing someone, anyone, then you’re denigrating yourself. If you cannot see them in all their humanity, then you are making a mistake that is not good for you.

You are undoubtedly better informed, more talented, or in some respect superior to the person you so greatly admire. If you can see that, he or she can shrink back to human proportions – and you can stop dwarfing yourself.

That person may have attracted your admiration for good reason, but I can assure you that he or she is not perfect and there will be some way in which you are their equal - or better.

So be nicer to yourself. Focus less on your bad points and maybe you’ll notice your good ones.

Focus less on the great deeds of others and you’ll stop overlooking what you have accomplished and what you are worth.

Because the fact of the matter is, if you do not value yourself, you cannot progress in life. You cannot be all you want to be and are capable of being.

It’s also unpleasant to watch someone on a high pedestal crash down – which eventually must happen. And then you tend to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” – the failing that you see now clouds everything else. The good gets lost in the crash.

Don’t idolize, don’t denigrate. Yourself or others. We are all equal. Those who have achieved are a reminder to us of what we can be and do. Those who have not are a reminder to us of life’s challenges and our own fallibility.