Comparison is the thief of joy. — Theodore Roosevelt
However, we are living in a world of comparison. Everything is about comparison. It is all about ranking, rating, stars, top 5, top 10… To make it worse, we — human beings love to compare ourselves to others.
We all are very different from each other. There are 7 billions people in this world and each of us is special and unique in our own way. We all have our own stories, our own circumstances — my yesterday is different than yours — my today is not the same to yours and obvious my tomorrow will be different than yours. It does not make sense for me to compare myself against you or vice versa.
I may know a little bit about you from our 2 minute conversation or from your Facebook status but I do not know much about you. I do not know about what you are going through. There is no way for me to compare myself to you. It is just a waste of time and energy to do so.
You may tell me that the reason why you want to compare to others is that you want to be motivated to get better. I would say that if you need external motivation to improve, I will never improve. Motivation is there — within yourself. You are responsible for finding your own motivation within yourself. Internal motivation will last longer and will make you stronger.
Compare yourself to others is bad, for many reasons:
- It does not make any sense. Because you tend to compare your behind the scenes to other’s highlights.
- It makes you doubt your own potentials. Because you do not know much about the other person, you tend to make an unfair comparison and then doubt yourself.
- It wastes your time and your energy. You only compare for the sake of comparing. It is a waste of time and energy.
- It makes you unhappy. When you compare yourself to others, you tend to focus too much on your developing area mentally. This will make you feel more and more insecure and therefore unhappy.
- It distracts you. Instead of focusing on what you need to do, you are paying too much attention on comparison.
The only comparison that I support is when you compare yourself to who you were yesterday. Life is all about learning and growing. There are things you are good at and there are things you are not really good at. If you are learning everyday and getting better everyday, you are living a good life — no doubts.
This perfect comparison, therefore, will generate endless motivation for you. Because this is internal motivation, it comes from within yourself and it is the one thing that will keep you going.
When you just focus on this one and only comparison, you will find yourself:
- Be happier — when you do not compare to others, you will be happier.
- Be nicer — you will become a nicer person by just being a better person everyday.
- Be more confident — if you know that you are learning and growing everyday, there is no reasons for you to feel self-depreciated.
- Be more grateful — when you stop comparing yourself to others, you will be more grateful with what you have and know how to appreciate what you have.
- Be more humble — when you know what everyone including is yourself is learning and growing everyday, there is no reasons for you to be arrogant. There are things you are good at and there are things you are really bad at.
Next time, if you want to compare, try to focus on yourself and ask yourself one important question: “Am I getting better everyday?”.
