Do Not Compare Yourself to Others

There is little to be gained from comparing yourself and your lot with others. If you should feel superior to others, your satisfaction would likely be at their cost, and to their diminishment. On the other hand, if you should feel inferior to others, that would be at your cost, and to your diminishment.

When you compare yourself and your lot with others, you are setting yourself up for failure. Even to compare yourself means you already have an attitude and a hidden purpose in mind, either to feel better or worse about yourself. And how you feel about yourself before the comparison usually will determine how you see yourself afterward.

There will always be people who have it better or worse than you. It is not in your best interests to attempt to locate where you are in the continuum between relatively good versus bad fortune. What is important is not what you do or do not have, from abilities to wealth; what matters is what you do with what you have. And being grateful for what you do have.

What matters above all is your attitude toward life and yourself. To use an analogy from golf. While golfers can be as competitive as any other athletes, when you play a round of golf, you are really playing yourself. It is every golfer for him or herself. You do not use each other’s clubs, and where one may need to hit a seven-iron, another may need to hit a five-iron, or vice-versa. Where one may have a fifteen handicap, another may have a five handicap.

Your handicap is absolutely irrelevant to the enjoyment of the game of golf. It becomes relevant only if and when you seek to compare yourself with, maybe even “beat” another golfer. Yet the real pleasure of golf should spring from the playing not the winning.

When you compare yourself to others two insidious internal tormentors readily show their twisted faces. You can feel envy or covetousness. While the two are closely related, there is this major difference: with envy you want something akin to what another has, say a new sports car. But with coveting you want the very sports car the other has. To be envious that another has such a good marriage while you don’t is one thing; to want the other’s spouse for yourself is quite another. That is why refraining from the latter is the last of the Ten Commandments.

Both envy and covetousness are built on dissatisfaction with one’s lot and a throbbing conviction that one cannot have or attain what one seeks. These twin beasts also arise when we undervalue the good we have while overvaluing the good we do not have. And that is something we are all prone to do.

To overcome envy and covetousness is not easy. To begin with, you must cease living in the torturous atmosphere of comparing your life to that of others. Ask yourself this: if you lived without seeing what another has that you would like, would you feel envy? Obviously not. Then stop looking and noticing and falsely believing that their grass is greener, that true contentment can come or stay with you from temporary possessions or fleeting prestige.

True contentment arises when you recognize the good you have and are, and the opportunities which are available for you to enjoy and love your life. True contentment arises when, rather than comparing yourself to others, you discover the unexpected satisfaction which arises from being of service to them.