Lay off the drugs m 8 <| sep |> I don ' t see anyone else suggesting this so I guess it ' s not a popular perspective , but I am the failure of my family and I feel like if you want to grow as a person you kind of just have to figure out how to deal with it . Yes , it ' s unpleasant and unnecessary , but you don ' t need to be a passive recipient of their deprecating remarks about you . Feel free to join them in gushing about your sister , and don ' t bother trying to refute anything negative they say about you . At best , they think you have the same potential as your sister and the only reason she ' s more successful by their measures , at any rate is that you ' re basically okay with where you are in life and the direction you ' re headed which is objectively fantastic . You will encounter people like this your whole life , and while it sucks that they ' re your family , if you can handle them , you ' re going to fare much better than people who move , quit their jobs , abandon their hobbies , etc . because they allowed someone else to make them feel horrible . Also , appreciate the fact you don ' t need to actually live up to someone else ' s impossibly high standard . Imagine your sister ' s partner cheated on her , or she got fired for underperforming at job , or she developed a thyroid problem and gained a bunch of weight beyond her control . How would someone on that high of a pedestal even cope ?