Hello, Friends!
My most elemental daily reminder is to stop comparing myself. To stop scanning my professional and personal horizons to determine my relative worth. To stop turning other people from cosmic collaborators into animal competitors. To stop allowing my life to be turned into a product rank-able by Consumer Reports. The temptation hits hard when I’m in the uncertainty of transitions; and I don’t remember a time that I wasn’t transitioning.
I think we all know that comparisons get us nowhere good. But that alone doesn’t always keep us from making them. The tendency is DNA-deep to desire the Joneses’ greener grass and wonder where we are in the pecking order. But it is also culture-wide. Comparing ourselves is the end-game of the tech-media-marketing complex. The stats on how social media in particular affects mental and social health—especially of teen girls—is harrowing.
The good news is that beyond DNA and culture, we have access to the transcendent platinum powers of awareness, resistance and redirection. We can not only limit comparing ourselves, we can also realize the incomparability of our lives.
Literally our lives are beyond comparison. Not subject to it. As in, we are not the kinds of things that can be meaningfully compared. Because we are not things, we are beings. Beings are utterly unique and inherently valuable. Beings are not replaceable by other beings. When we compare ourselves—any part of ourselves or the entirety of our existence—it is dehumanizing. To thing-ify ourselves is violent. It’s painful. It’s sad. And it makes no sense.
The alternative is to live out of our incomparable natures. We can learn to live doubt-free about our place on eternity’s frontier. We can walk around town inimitable, unrivaled, peerless and humble knowing the same is true of everyone else. This allows us to start getting curious about what sorts of original sculptures we can form with our lives. To be awestruck by our quirks. To laugh at our wild combination of traits, interests, aversions and unfolding experience. To let go of fantasy versions of who we thought we should or would be, what shapes and colors our lives would take on. To surrender timelines of when we shoulda done X by. Damn those 40 under 40 lists!
So how do we STOP the comparing? What do you think of this 3-part path?:
Recognize why we compare ourselves in the first place. (Often because we need reassurance about our security and worth.)
Resist it with a handy-dandy trick of your choice. (Saying out loud, “Not today, Satan” or, you know, singing this 80’s rendition of a classic gospel song.)
Redirect our attention to the fact of our incomparability. (It gets easier the more we build out a picture of what makes up our particularity.)
Practicing with Platinum:
Saying NO to Comparing:
Awareness: When does this tend to sneak up on me? What’s easiest for me to start comparing myself around? Where am I when it happens? Who around me frequently compares themselves that I might be absorbing the dynamic from?
Action/Resistance: Pick one phrase to say when you notice yourself slipping into comparisons. Say it out loud as many times as you need to to re-train your brain. Maybe it’s just taking note, “Comparisons afoot.” Maybe it’s reassurance, “You’re ok. No one can take your place.” Maybe it’s punk rock: “Eff that.”
Saying YES to Incomparability:
Awareness: What tension comes up for you when you think of living out of your incomparable nature? Where’s the friction as we live in a world that is structured for competition, proving ourselves, and fear? What truths do you know about yourself, your value and the universe that you can hold onto in those spaces?
Action: Who could you make a point to message incomparability to this week? What would that sound like? What would happen if it was in the middle of a workplace that thrives on comparisons? Can you pick one specific thing you tend to compare yourself around and practice contentment with who you are, naming the positives that are in place?
P.S. - Here’s a crown.
P.P.S—Part of my incomparable story of the loneliness of single motherhood was recently on ABC news alongside the Surgeon General’s new advisory on parental mental health.