In a class I was teaching the other day I asked everyone to share one of the best pieces of advice they’d ever received. A young woman floored me with a comment from her grandmother, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”
What do you think? My first inclination was to agree with her grandmother, because as social creatures it’s natural to compare ourselves to others, and there’s even a term for it in psychology called social comparison theory, where we either think people are better than us, not as good as us or the same. And every time we see others as better, it’s a challenge we feel we need to overcome.
The problem is our comparisons are always skewed. Regardless of how amazing we deem someone’s ability to lead or their charisma, confidence or (you can fill in your own words here), it’s still an illusion. In other words beware, outward appearances are deceiving. Years ago, I was teaching an all-day class for the Navy, and a man with enough medals to confound a metal detector came up to me at lunchtime. He had been sitting stoically all morning and I anticipated he’d have something negative to say. Instead, he explained he couldn’t come back in the afternoon and wondered if I had any recommendations for books he should read since, he explained, he had very low self-esteem. Our comparison on the perfection of others tends to be inaccurate. A second reason comparisons are faulty is that we just don’t begin at the same starting line, we all have vastly different backgrounds and challenges and some have so much more to overcome than others.
The only comparison worth making is to look back at where we were six months ago, six years or six weeks ago, and notice the difference. Our growth isn’t linear of course, but when we stop to see what we’ve overcome or accomplished or tenaciously worked our way through, then we have every right to celebrate our small successes and be proud of our courage and abilities. In this case comparison isn’t the thief of joy, it’s a great motivator instead!
