Comparisons

C
omparisons are immensely destructive.

It is not possible to accurately weigh your worth as a human being against other people on a balance scale. You surreptitiously place a finger on the opposing weighing pan and tip the beam against yourself.

When we measure ourselves against others, we compare the most externally-positive aspects of their lives to the most internally-negative aspects of ours.

If you’re unhappily single, the world will seem full of undeserving people enjoying giddy, fulfilling romantic relationships, while you are forever destined to loneliness. If you’re unemployed or don’t like your job, everybody except you will seem to have perfect jobs.

Other people will always have faces, hair, and bodies more beautiful than yours, marriages more nurturing than yours, jobs that are better than yours, greater financial security, better accomplishments, and nicer stuff than you have. The mind-blowing thing is that even as you pity yourself for your numerous shortcomings and for the bad hand you’ve been dealt, there is bound to be somebody out there looking at you and envying your life just like you envy everybody else.

Self-esteem ought not to be a competitive sport. When it is, of course it’s a zero-sum game. For one person to win another must lose. If comparisons are the route to happiness, then not everybody can be happy.