“Comparison is the thief of joy”, a quote I’ve encountered many times on social media. But like many things, you have to see it happen for yourself in order to truly get what it means. You have to have that “Aha-moment” to appreciate all of these well-meant wise words. Otherwise they are just words you scroll by.
“In this case comparing myself to my classmates did steal my joy in learning. It was dominated by insecurity and shame.”
It is funny though, how comparing ourselves is actually something we are trained to do. Just think about it for a moment. Ever since we started to go to school as very young children, we have to fit in the ‘norms’ of the age group you are in. Are you social enough? Do you read fast enough? God, I used to hate that pressure! I remember being about ten years old in my classroom, when my teacher decided to give us a math test. It wasn’t something I was very good at, but I wasn’t terrible either. I just needed my time to think about it. So you can imagine the fear that came over me the second she explained it would me a math test based on speed! I could just die at that very moment. My heart was raising and I started to sweat. I feel so sorry for little Jen… We all were given a piece of paper that had to be turned over, so we couldn’t see the questions. The rules of this evil game were as followed: The math questions were formed in a few columns. You had to solve the questions each column at a time. You would be given a certain amount of time to finish each column. And it was timed by my teacher and her stopwatch. While I sat there in almost a pool of my own sweat, I constantly looked around at the speed of the other kids around me. There was one kid next to me who needed less than one second to solve each problem! And I knew I couldn’t, so that made me feel very insecure as you can imagine. Of course I didn’t come very far when my teacher commanded we had to put our pencils down and turn the test over. Not only was I intimidated but I also felt so ashamed. I can’t imagine that this was what the school intended to achieve for me, but it is the norm. In this case comparing myself to my classmates did steal my joy in learning. It was dominated by insecurity and shame.
There is a need to put up a standard in this world and I’m guessing it is for good reason. How else should we know where we stand if we can’t test it right? I’m not trying to say we shouldn’t have certain norms, but maybe we should test it a different way. I must admit, I haven’t done any research on what should be happening on this subject. So I’m going back to my experiences. Throughout my entire school life I had to be compared to others and meet the norm. It is weird how quickly I started to use the same way of validating myself on other areas in my life. “She has a 1000 friends on Facebook, so I guess I’m not so social with my 300 something friends.” Or “ He travels around the world with his music, so my accomplishments are irrelevant.” And “This blog post has 50 comments and mine has none so it must be bad.” I don’t think I have to tell you that these are things that don’t have a norm, so it isn’t possible to compare yourself to others this way. And yet, we all do this.
“I don’t want to be less good at it than others and therefore it paralyzed me.”
I have always been so insecure about achieving something and I’m pretty sure that this is the root of it all. I’m not insecure about me as a person. I think I’m nice, funny, good hearted, smart and I don’t mind the way I look. Yes, I’ve said it! But when it comes to career, business and skills I always talk myself down. It’s like I’m setting myself up for failure. Because I don’t want to be less good at it than others and therefore it paralyzed me.
“It’s about setting my own norm and work towards it with others in mind as possible guidelines.”
All that the comparing to others does is making me feel less and incapable, and I don’t want to feel like that anymore. I want to be proud of what I can do and be impressed by others at the same time. It should be possible right? I think it is! I need to shift my focus on being intimidated by others to being inspired by others. Whenever I see another blog that does well, I need to ask myself what it is that makes it so successful and what can I do to be this successful too? When I see others living their dream, I should ask myself am I living mine and what can I do to change my life if I’m not. It’s about setting my own norm and work towards it with others in mind as possible guidelines.
What has comparing yourself to others brought you?