comparing yourself to life

Social comparison feels like a dead bird in your chest. Somehow fluttering. Somehow brushing up against the borders of your heart, eager to leap out. Onto a page, perhaps. Wanting to be the best or better-than just to feign some semblance of actual self worth is no way to live. And yet.

I grieve the world we were not given. One where our inherent worth is protected and not precarious. Where the rich treasures of the soul are revered; not the shallow triumphs of the ego. What a heartbreak — to be conditioned to see yourself as a lack in the midst of such cosmic abundance.

When the feelings of inadequacy arise, do not rush to fix. Rush to fix that you rushed to fix.

Did that work?

Words cannot fully console, but the attempt brings a soft smile to the lips.

I went to competitive schools, at first seeking safety in winning. What I didn’t realize was, at the same time, a competitive environment was growing up inside of me. An ecosystem took root and then blossomed — of monitoring, checking, comparing, measuring, striving, trying to retain the sense that I am worthwhile.

How much of your ambition is just envy?

Try not to judge yourself. These roots run deeper than you. You can’t prune an endless forrest of unworthiness with your bare hands.

Humanize her. Or him or them. This person you have placed on a pedestal so far above you. Fleshy evidence of your shortcomings. Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection in a body of water and drowned in the body of self-absorption. We are not so different.

Without meaning to, we turn the Other into a caricature. Conjuring up who we need them to be, projecting a life of perfection onto a complex and layered human life. Social media seduces us into doing this to ourselves, and each other. To subdue insecurity into the deep, fake waters of a filtered reality. To objectify the human condition, until it becomes something unrecognizable.

In comparison, our storytelling powers are used against us. We invent a human experience filled with only triumph. No such thing exists. How must that feel? We wonder. To be so successful, so beautiful, to have that many followers, to be chosen, to have “everything figured out”, to travel so much, to have that much freedom, to have gotten into that school, to be so talented, to be thriving, to have so many friends, to be so Undeniable? (Industry reference).

What are the private longings and pains and joys beneath the surface of what I think I can see? How did they suffer to obtain those things? How would they see themselves if they lost them? How do they suffer to hold onto where their worth is now placed? (Which invites a celebrity plastic surgery discussion)

Humanize your rival or role model. Who knows of a human life with only triumph? Only someone who is not listening.

And this techno-obsessed social paradigm makes it challenging to speak truthfully and listen deeply — to really hear the deeper whispers of the human unfolding.There are many dimensions of a life. You may envy their outcomes, but not their process. They may be thriving in their career, but battling a private health struggle you will never know about. She may be proud to be a new mom, but grieving the loss of old freedoms. He might be thrilled to have sold the rights to his book to a big studio, but never be able to get back the time he sacrificed away from his family, or the impacts of over-working on his health.

Or you know what — they may be really fucking over-joyed. That is beautiful and I wish big, magical joy to all of us. But If I think of any actual human being I’ve ever met, the raw reality is much different, much more layered, and much more humbling. When you see what it took to actually build the dream relationship, business, career — you stop having a reductive envy about the having of it.

But the opposite is also true. Just as every human life suffers unknown tragedies, it also holds invisible delights. Beautiful dimensions you would not even know to envy, from the outside looking into another outside. A loving relationship with parents. A beautiful treatment of self. An ability to be present, here, now, with the world in ways that are rapidly decaying for most. A genuine heart of gold. A love of painting or poetry or piano that makes Saturdays feel like the sweetest song. These private dimensions are precious and plenty.

When I feel envious of someone, typically online, typically career-related, I place a hand on my heart. I say, Just like me you suffer. Just like me you love. I like the duality of this statement. There are aspects of their life I would not envy if I knew more. And the most enviable aspects of their human experience are probably beyond the frame of what I can see.

We are taught to compare ourselves to others not on neutral terms — but according to the value system society perpetuates through us — “success” in capitalistic, individualistic, institutionally-defined terms, Beauty in Eurocentric and patriarchal and thin and rich supremacist terms, love in a hierarchical understanding where romantic love is on top, fame and attention based on a value system that doesn’t award it to the most love-led people.

We do not compare ourselves to how loving, generous, or full of integrity someone is. We do not compare ourselves based on conditions of the soul — for these are incomparable. Only the ego can be compared, or would opt for such a horrifying possibility. I am musing on this topic, not solving. I do experience an invitation to come home to the incomparable within ourselves and within each other. Note down what you feel is incomparable about you — perhaps how deep of a listener you are, how non-defensive and receptive in conflict, how generously you give your attention to the world, how sensitive you are to the energies in a room.

Find the beauty in your spirit, the treasures of your soul, and the next time someone is Proud to Announce *Something That Triggers You* — remember that what is essential, heartfelt, and world-building within each of us is beyond the horizon that comparison can reach.

And also, of course, be inspired by humans who do inspiring things! Consistent effort over time towards a worthy cause, devotion, commitment, seeing something through — these are deeply inspiring human capacities. And also, we can broaden the scope of what is an inspiring thing to do. How we love is the most inspiring possibility and typically cannot be observed from the outside.

Try to tell people, in specific detail, what you find wonderful about their spirit and soul — helping them blossom new flowers of self-love in the ecosystem of their heart. Nourishing the flowers that try try try to stay alive in toxic soil. Reimagining what is worth celebrating in each of us — beyond the social traits and forms of capital we were conditioned to value. This, I imagine, is a small yet sacred part of what it means to compare ourselves to life instead of death. Alchemizing the pain of comparison into an insistence on affirming the innate gifts of the human spirit.

We need sweeping political, social, spiritual, and technological changes to re-make the world into one where we all feel essentially at home. Part of that work involves re-membering our inherent sacredness and infinite worth, our incomparability and immeasurability — and supporting each other’s journeys of remembrance and return.

We walk this earth always and already together. Comparison alienates us from ourselves as inherently sacred, and from each other as fellow travelers, not competitors. When we feel the pain of falling short, we can return to a broader vision of what it would take to co-create a world where the human spirit is not reduced to competition and where the soul/spirit receives the reverence it deserves.

Comparing Yourself to Life is a title I came up with at the end of this unfolding, and now I feel excited to explore it further. As someone who has intimately felt the soul-crushing, self-annihilating experience of comparing yourself to other people, I feel excited and hopeful about alchemizing this life-depleting experience into life-giving possibilities. But first, presence.

This has been a hard week. My mantra for myself this week is: Grace at every step. This life will break your heart, but if you’re wise, you’ll let it break you open. I walk with the invisible friend of pain that overstayed its welcome. One year later, me and my friend, existing in a private intimacy I would never have chosen for myself. But I am here with my heart cracked even more widely open, having the courage to choose this life of mine, just as it is. To know that this is not a mistake or a detour from what was supposed to happen — this is exactly what I have come here to experience. This here. This now. This all of it.