Musings | The Danger of Comparisons
“Comparison is the thief of joy.”
“I hate Facebook right now,” my friend said to me the other night. “All the photos of happy families doing fun weekend day trips or family outings are making me feel awful. I can’t convince my kids to get out of the house and we don’t even want to be around each other anyway – ugh! It just makes me feel terrible.” We’ve all been there. We’ve all had an attack of “comparisonitis”, that feeling we get when we receive news or see photos of someone else’s success or good experiences. Instead of feeling happy for them, we end up comparing ourselves to them and feeling worse about ourselves and our lives. Below we will unpack why we do this to ourselves and the ways we can adjust our thinking, so we stop. But first, let’s have a gut level moment.
When reviewing social media remember, that everyone posting on social media has complete control over what they post and how it looks – very few of us are ok with acknowledging that in some way, and at some point, we all feel like train wrecks. So, that awesome photo of the family at the summit of a hike? Or the daily updates on an epic road trip? It is pretty likely that the lead up to and the follow up after those photos were taken had some chaos and moments not worthy of sharing. Photos capture a moment in time. They allow us to present as shiny and smooth on the outside even when there is chaos and mess raging on the inside (or in the background). So, while, as humans, we are prone to comparisons, social media is probably the worst place to draw from. Drawing on several sources (see links below) let’s move on to understand how we can overcome “comparisonitis.”
Why We Compare
Humans are social beings; we compare ourselves as a way of monitoring and managing our place in the social hierarchy. Comparison helps us navigate our way. Social Comparison Theory suggests that our need to compare ourselves to others is part of our brain’s social-cognition network and linked to our need to understand our environment so we can assess threats and protect ourselves. Our need to compare is rational, the way we tend to go about it is not.
Why Comparison is Not Good for Us
In addition to being the “thief of joy” there are other ways that social comparisons can wreak havoc on us:
1. The perfection of others is an illusion: As noted above, family photos or selfies we see on social media only show a snapshot in time and certainly not the entire story. For example, someone getting a book published celebrates the book but fails to mention the 8 years of work and the 15 rejected submissions before the book was published. We don’t always have the whole truth.
2. Comparison feeds jealousy and turns friends into rivals: When we use the accomplishments of others as a benchmark for self-evaluation instead of celebrating the accomplishments of our friends and acquaintances, we may be fueling jealousy instead of joy.
3. We can become obsessive. When we constantly compare ourselves to others, we risk developing negative and destructive beliefs that create the (incorrect) conclusion that we are simply not good enough, that our kids are not smart enough, that we don’t have good friends, that we lack exciting life experiences and that we are not loved. With this line of thinking, we are at risk of being sucked into a negative and destructive cycle.
How to Stop
Gain awareness of your thoughts and change your narrative. What story are you telling yourself?
Ask questions to ground you: Who are you comparing yourself to? Is that a fair comparison? Is it helpful? What is the gift of the comparison – it is teaching you something, telling you something, or inspiring you? Are you learning from it?
Ask questions that will change your mindset: What information or expertise does this person have that could be helpful to me? What can I learn from them?
Remember, you can be anything, but you can’t be everything. What is important to you? Who do you want to be?
Compare yourself to who you were yesterday. Stay focused on your own improvement.