We all do it. We all see something someone else does or has and we compare ourselves to them. It’s a futile game we do and it sets us up to feel bad about ourselves.
We all do it. We all see something someone else does or has and we compare ourselves to them. It’s a futile game we do and it sets us up to feel bad about ourselves. The best way to kill your joy is to compare yourself or your life to someone else. It will sap you of happiness, fun and fulfillment. It will take away your energy and make you a victim. It causes jealousy, bitterness and being ungrateful for the life that is yours. When we put ourselves in the energetic space of comparing what we don’t have to someone else, we aren’t being true to the magnificence of who we are. You cannot be grateful and compare yourself to someone else. Those two very different feelings cannot coexist. And I promise you if you live by comparing yourself to what others have to what you don’t have, you will get more of the same. Negative energy is insidious; it eats away at your joy, piece by piece. It will eventually do you in, if you don’t change it.
Think about all the ways we compare ourselves to others. He has a better job than I do; she has better-behaved children than mine. He makes more money than I or has a better house or a prettier wife. She is a courageous businesswoman and I am a coward in a job I hate. She is thinner than I am, unfortunately for women, this is a big one. For men it’s... he is more successful than I am. Look how much money he has made and he is only 30 and I am 40 and struggling. The list is endless and exhausting. Why do we do that? What is in our DNA as people that cause us to look for reasons to feel bad about ourselves? That’s what we are doing if you really think about it; we are looking for reasons to feel bad about who we are. Really think about that for a moment; it’s nonsensical, it’s crazy and it’s destructive.
This is the way we punish ourselves for being who we are. Do you really believe God or The Universe in its infinite wisdom created humans so we could go around wishing we were the guy down the street with the successful wife and the big house? Or the woman who wishes she was a famous actress rather than her brilliant self? NO! That’s insane. Do you think your dog goes around comparing himself to your cat wishing he can sleep on the counter? No, your dog knows who he is and loves being that. Your cat knows she can jump up on the counter, she isn’t wishing she was the dog who goes for long walks in the park with you. The giraffe does not compare itself to the elephant; the bird does not compare itself to the fish, animals don’t feel bad about who they are. Just us, we are the only species in the entire universe that has decided that we need to compare who we are to feel bad and punish ourselves.
Now the flip side of that coin is we also do that to feel better about ourselves. Think about it, how many women do you know who have an ex whose new girlfriend or wife is put down because she may not be as financially successful or thin or pretty as that woman. It makes her feel better to think that way about the new woman. It’s the same for men; they may think they are better than their ex-wife’s new husband because they make double the money than he. Everyone does it, we all have. Here is the thing though, we are lying to ourselves. We think it’s to make us feel better than or superior to the other person we are comparing ourselves to. The truth is, it comes from the same energetic space as when we do it and punish ourselves because of what we don’t have. There is no difference between these two things; they are exactly the same just on the opposite side of the spectrum.
If we really loved and appreciated who we are at our core and saw ourselves as the brilliant human beings we were created to be, we wouldn’t have the need to compare ourselves to anyone or anything.
I am not going to lie, I do it too. I am really committed to letting that go. If I believe in God or the Universe as I say I do, I must trust that I was created exactly as I am supposed to be in all my brilliance and imperfections. When I can really get that and feel it in my spirit, it is pure joy. There is no one else I need to be but myself, God wouldn’t have it any other way.