Life and Comparison
Posted on September 30, 2016 by Vasudha Jha, One of Thousands of Relationship Coaches on Noomii.
“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” ~Steve Furtick
When we start believing that the ‘highlight reel’ in people’s lives is really the life that they are living, it often makes us feel rather inadequate and our lives totally messy. Stemming from our childhood where comparison was used to perhaps ‘motivate’ or exemplify ‘success’, we grow up thinking we are ‘never enough’!
The thing with comparing ourselves to others that is it’s something each one of us does sub-consciously. Well, if this wasn’t enough, our lives are encompassed by social media which is really the showcase of our lives, it is the living room that people glimpse, not the messy bedroom or spare room in our homes. The impact that such showcasing has on our lives and of those around us is that we start to question whether we are ‘good enough’; ‘successful enough’; ‘happy enough’; to the extent that everything and everyone (spouse, kids, parents, career…..) in our lives seems scanty and impoverished!
Turning this feeling around can be achieved by simply:
Appreciating what we do have:
Remember that we have a million of things to be grateful for – in this moment just the simple fact that I have been able to write and share this piece; and for you to be reading it! Do we stop and think that there may be someone who would be immensely grateful to have a life that we have, that we are being compared to?
Each comparison is between a fish and a monkey!
Born with our own talents, quirks, personality, how can we fit into the skin on another? The choices we make determine the life that we have and no two people and no two lives are the same. Are you judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree?
Consider how much people know about us:
Even the people closest to us – our parents, spouse, friends, children, colleagues cannot claim to know us 100%. Even if they are close to reading our minds 99% of the time, there will be that 1% when it will not work. What makes us believe that the happiness, professional success and the ‘perfect’ marriage we see on display is really as amazing as it appears? Is it worth putting ourselves down thinking that perception about other people’s lives is the reality?
Who we are is the greatest source of our misery:
Real success is when we can compare and compete with ourselves – to be the best version of who we can be. Why is it that who we are ourselves and what we have is the greatest source of misery to us? And the irony is that perhaps it may be a great source of misery to others too. Who knows who is looking at our life with a sigh – look at her, how lucky she is!!!! Don’t we then stop and wonder if this person has even a clue about our struggles and our heartaches?
Wisdom to change what we can – ourselves:
If we are unhappy with our lives, the onus to change it to what we want lies with us by harnessing the power we are blessed with. We are all complete with the wisdom to embrace ourselves, love what is unique, the ‘us’, and change what does not resonate and gives rise to fruitless comparisons. The only person we can change is ourselves so why compare?
The seeds of happiness is in the everyday race with ourselves to be our best, not better than the rest.
