“Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.” Regina Brett, Ohio.
It is so easy for us to believe that other people have it better than us and that our life is not as good as everyone else’s, because comparisons of worth are an accepted, habitual part of our daily life. However, we base our beliefs on perception, only ever looking at someone else’s life with an outsider’s eyes and mind and what we see may or may not be what actually is – but still, we believe it. Through what we perceive to be true, we conclude so many things about this other person’s life because we believe that what we think must be so.
What is the danger to us in doing this? Can we fail to see the good in our own life by only ever comparing who we are to everyone else? Our opportunity for self awareness and personal growth, in fact, our whole quest of learning to be the authentic us, is diminished when we enter the realm of comparisons, judgements and conjecture.
Just as every being is unique, every life journey is unique. If we accept that as a truth, then it follows that any comparisons between individuals is unnecessary for no two will ever be identical. So why would we feel the need to measure our individual worth against another?
People can be quite adept at showing others only what they want them to see or know. Lives are built around the different masks and roles we adopt as our own; where people choose to disclose as much (or as little) of themselves and their lives to others as they wish. Yet, we continue to compare ourselves to these facades. If all is never what it seems, why do people perpetuate this need?
Behind every clown, there are tears and behind every success, there are more failures. These dichotomies are designed to teach us that all is not what it appears and that we should not judge another’s journey based solely on what we see before us.
Consider those times when others compare themselves to you. Do they see your life as you do? Do they understand the bumps, twists, turns, highs and lows that have been a part of your unique journey to make you the individual you now are? We cannot pretend that ours is the only life that comes with these tests and then wish our lives were as perfect as someone else’s appears to be. If you experience hard times, then so do they – no path to self mastery walks a straight line.
Sometimes, when we feel lack in our lives, we envy what others have or are. It is easy to want to live in a gorgeous home if you don’t own one. It is equally easy to envy financial success when we don’t have any of our own and we can also desire a relationship that we think is amazing when we are alone or fighting with a loved one. However, this is only a small part of their journey isn’t it? This is but one aspect of their whole existence – you have no idea what the rest of their life is like. Nor do others when they compare themselves to you.
We tend to only see in others what we believe is missing in us. Often, we become jealous because we want what we think others have and we think it will make us a better and more worthy person once we do. Would we want the failed marriages that may have come with their wealth? Do we also want the sleepless nights when the stock market crashes and all they have worked for looks like disappearing? Do we long to spend night after night alone in their mansion because they did not make time for other people?
How much of another person’s life do we wish to own?
What is wrong with our own life now? Who you are is in line with your journey and you are learning the lessons that are destined to increase your sense of self and purpose. Loss, pain, lack and joy, luck and gratitude star in everyone’s life in varying degrees. Everyone has an element of their life that they prefer was different and when times are tough; we all wish to have the opposite. However, we need to be careful with what we wish for, don’t we?
We are all no better than, no worst than, no smarter or greater than nor less or worthless than, any other being that we share our planet with. Each life here is unique and special and designed to hold within it all the tools necessary for self mastery and understanding. If we can respect others, so too must we respect ourselves and the journey we are on.
There will never be another ‘you’… ever. Why would you compare anything about you to a journey that is not yours? Realising one’s worth is humbling and rewarding and removes all need for comparisons; replacing it with gratitude and gratefulness for in the realms beyond ourselves, there is no comparison at all and no need for it. We all are because we are – and we are all equal.
