Now more than ever details of our lives are shown to the world.
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snap Chat, Youtube
You can endlessly scroll and see intimate parts of a person’s life. We get sucked into the drama and glamour of other people’s lives. Sometimes just to escape our reality for a little while.
What we end up doing is comparing the person on the screen’s life to our own.
But we don’t just stop at the screen. We compare ourselves to family, friends, co-workers, and even random strangers we pass at the coffee shop.
You analyze your body, clothing, food choices, living environment, careers and so much more. You look at what they have verse what you have. Most of the time envying what they have and feeling bad about what you have.
It’s an almost guaranteed way to be miserable.
You are stuck in the compare & despair cycle.
Compare & Despair Cycle
The compare and despair cycle is something most of us are familiar with.
You take someone’s best thing in their life and compare it to what you view as a worse thing in your life.
People who have lost weight will fall into this cycle. They work their butts off to lose however much weight and be the healthiest they ever been. Then they see someone who’s skinnier with a “better” body shape. Now they just feels crappy. They want that, they should be that, and it’s unfair that it isn’t that way.
Do those thoughts feel familiar?
You may not have had them about weight loss but you probably have about something. Even if it’s the type of hair someone has.
These thoughts send you right into despair. Feeling hopeless and like you will never get that. Your life can’t be as good because you don’t have that.
Sometimes you force action from this place.
Why do we do this?
What makes us compare ourselves to others?
1. Social conditioning
There are things we are taught to view as better. We live in a world where the message is pushed that bigger houses, nicer cars, and skinnier people are more successful and are happier.
Subconsciously your brain is storing these messages and pushing them at you. These thoughts are prewired.
2. Ideal Life
We have an idea of what our life should look like.
As you’ve gotten older and progressed through the world you have a picture of where you should be living, what job you should have, if you should be married or have children, etc. Now you use that as a bench mark against your life.
When you see others that have those things you fall into the compare and despair cycle.
3. It’s always better over there
Things are always for sure better over there because it’s not here.
Our brains love to tell us that if we just had the bigger house our relationship would be better and our kids wouldn’t act out.
Or of course a different job will mean less stress and no more weight issues. Why do you think she’s so skinny?
The brain will point to something outside of you as the reason to your discomfort. It’s common the think changing something in your life will make it better. In reality it may make that one area of your life better but the discomfort will switch to something else.
Stop the cycle
The prewired thoughts from social conditioning have become the default response in your brain.
Bigger house = better.
It will state it as a fact. It is indeed not a fact.
There is not a way to measure better. Which means you get to decide what better is. As your life develops you can change your definition.
Maybe a bigger house is better to you. That still doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with your house. Just because someone else’s house is bigger doesn’t make your house awful.
Even if you want to work towards a bigger house there isn’t a reason to compare.
People will make the argument that if you don’t compare or think of something as better than you won’t work to get out of your situation. I don’t think this is true.
I believe that you need to love what you have. You can love something and still choose to leave it and work towards other goals.
Eliminate the word should
Should serves no one. Especially, when it is referencing the past.
The past has already happened. It happened the way it was supposed to. There is no arguing that because it happened.
Leave the past to the past. You can change now and how you move forward.
There is nothing you should have or should be. The only person that makes the rules is you. Which means you get to lighten up on yourself.
Change I should be skinnier to I am going to honor my body, eat healthier, and work out.
Shift I should have a big house and a fancy car to I have worked hard in my life and am grateful for what I have and can’t wait to achieve more.
The way you talk to yourself, even in thought, matters. Statements that seem harmless can cause you to act from a place of scarcity or negativity. You can achieve a result faster, with less drama, and more effectively when you shift your thoughts.
The most effective way to stop
You stop comparing.
It is none of your business what other people are doing or what they have. Stay out of their lives and focus on yours.
Comparison is always a trap. You are you; you are unique.
No one’s stories will be the same. You experience different things, have different brains and bodies, and will approach situations differently.
That is the beauty of our world.
If, things aren’t always sunny and bright that is okay. In fact it’s great. The down times and negative feelings mean you are a human. Life was never meant to be always sunny and bright.
Final Note –
Compare and despair does not have to be a forever part of your life. You are already enough and already worthy without doing anything else. Your life is exactly as it was meant to be right now. You get to decide what it looks like in the future.
