“comparison is the thief of joy” TR
Besides all the reasons we think why we’re unhappy comparison is their beyonce.
At first, it was school and grades and as I got older, I began comparing other metrics like job title, education, money, friends… and lived most of my life making myself miserable looking over the shoulders of others to see what they have that I do not. It automatically made me create rivals in my head and place my focus on them while I should focus on things I’m good at instead. Feelings of envy started to emerge and I didn’t like that about myself. It made me REALLY miserable.
And no no I didn’t stop there. I did this continiously even when the comparisons weren’t meaningful, made me unhappy, and even when they didn’t actually make me better, smarter, or more productive. It was really unfair bacause I typically compared the worst I knew of myself to the best I presumed about others.
Unfortunately even our society encourages these behaviours. We’re always in our older siblings shadows and we will always be our siblings brother or sister, or somebedy’s friend… It gets toxic to the point we get bullied for the simple reason that we’re not the same.
I never thought about it deeply enough to realize that comparing myself especially with all the social media and the pressure to be better is driving me and everyone comparing themselves to be pretty much the same. Yes we’re designed to understand ourselves. We’re born with the capacity to self-reflect (sometimes self deprecate) , it’s a human vertue and how we make sense of the world, but it still is a character flaw hidden somewhere deep in our hearts.
Then I learned the hard way that we all have a unique perspective backed by unique experiences and unique gifts that prepare us for strength and gowth to face whatever life is going to throw our ways, so each one of us has the capacity to love, serve, and contribute. With that I also learned to convert comparing myself with others to finding inspiration in them. And when I thought about it this way I became aware of my past successes. And weirdly found motivation in them to pursue more.
I’m learning each day to strive to be the best possible version of myself not only for myself but for the benefit and contribution I’m willing to offer to others, to work hard, to take care of myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Commit to growing a little bit each day. And learn to celebrate the little advancements I am making without comparing them to others, because there’s an infinite number of categories upon which I can compare myself and an almost infinite number of people to compare myself to, and once I’ll begin down that road, I’ll never find an end. At the end no matter how much I compared myself to others, I’m not trying to be somebody else, I shouldn’t be trying to, and I’m not going to even if I wanted to, I only want to be me even if I don’t fully know what that means yet, and I’m excited to discover and I think it will forever be the case. Besides, being unapologetically myself is a virtue in itself, accepting every little thing that makes me me and not anybody else in this world. I do sometimes adjust the intensity of each attribute in accordance to each relationship but that doesn’t make me any less of whoever I am now.