A comparison becomes fairer when the starting resources are allowed into the picture.

Two results sitting side by side look like a verdict on two people, until you ask what each of them started with. Time, money, health, a quiet room, someone to watch the children: none of that appears in the outcome, and all of it shaped the outcome. Leaving it out does not make a comparison neutral, it makes it wrong in a direction that flatters whoever began with more.

When you catch yourself measuring your progress against someone else’s, add their starting conditions to the sum, and yours. Do the same when you judge someone as slow. The numbers rarely change; what you conclude from them should.