We live in a society of comparisons and that’s great if your buying a car but when we start comparing ourselves to other people it’s a slippery slope. For as long as I can remember I have been comparing myself to the people around me. When I was in kindergarten all I wanted was to have pretty blonde hair like the girl next door instead of my own dark hair. I wished my hair wasn’t so straight that is had more body (boy was that a mistake cause I have wavy hair now and I wish I could go back to when in was straight).
The point is I never stopped. I still compare myself to everyone; my friends, my family, even people I don’t like. But I don’t gain anything from doing this I just make myself unhappy. I can’t change who I am by wishing to be someone else. No matter what I do it’s never good enough and it’s my own fault. I set my standards impossibly high but the only person that it’s setting for failure is me. If we want to be truly happy we have to stop comparing ourselves to everyone else.
“Comparison is the thief of joy”- Theodore Roosevelt
Clearly I’m not qualified to tell you how to quit comparing yourself to others considering I just tried to compare how much I compare myself to others with how much my friends compare themselves to others. So I compiled this list of ways to stop comparing yourself to others from a few sources, including the Huffington Post, Psychology Today, zenhabits.net and WikiHow (I know surprising but they had some really great advice).
- Pay attention to how you view yourself and evaluate yourself esteem.
If you feel good about yourself then it won’t matter what the people around you are doing.
- Look for what makes you compare yourself to others.
Comparative behavior, whether positive or negative, can undermine your self-esteem.
- Congratulate others.
Just because they succeeded doesn’t mean you failed there aren’t winners and losers in life we’re all just trying to be happy.
- Seek to understand, not judge.
Your happiness doesn’t have to look the same as the people around you.
“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” -Thich Nhat Hanh
-Intern Meg
