I had always felt that there was some sort of contest or comparison between me and my

brother, whether it be our grades, classes, interests, or even social skills. I always felt the kind of
pressure that wasnt meant to be intimidating, but was meant to make me do better, but it often
times led to me having anxiety and a feeling of being less than adequate. No one ever tried to
make me feel this way, but it just came off as that. It seemed unfair sometimes having to always
be compared to your older brother. While we were similar in many ways, we were still very
different people. While he was observant and adventurous, I was oblivious and reclusive. We
would interpret different things with different events. Where he was smart I was usually less so.
But these things had always made me look up to him, wanting to be better and succeed in the
world.
Decide for yourself is something that I would hear often from my brother. Id usually
be with him while I was younger, so most of my thoughts and opinions were similar to his own.
Hed always encourage me to make my own opinions and thoughts though, probably to make me
shape my own future and ideas, and not let others shape them for me.