Compare-n-Despair Arena

I've heard it said that "comparison steals your joy."

There's this group of people I know who do a thing that drives me nuts.  We'll be watching a show, or eating some meal, or listening to some song, or riding in a vehicle, and the'll say, "Which one of [these things we're watching, eating, listening to, or riding in] is better?  [This one now], or [that other one]?"

"I don't know," I'll mutter.  "I like them both?"

"No," they'll say.  "You've got to pick one.  One is better than the other.  Which one's better?"

"Hell if I know," I'll say, getting agitated and exasperated.  "In this moment, I like the one I have better than not having it at all, and making me compare the two is just pissing me off, so which is better in this moment?  Making me decide which one's better and getting into a big fight about it, or letting me just enjoy this thing in peace and not having a fight about it?"

"Jeez!  I was just asking!" they'll say.

It isn't enough to notice that the sky is blue today.  You have to muse on whether the blue of the sky today is bluer than the sky was yesterday.  Is the green grass this year greener than the green grass was last year?  Which is better?  Which is BETTER?  WHICH IS BETTER?!

I don't know.  I just don't know.  Dude, why does one thing always have to be better than another?  Can't they both be great for their own reasons?

But before I get too high-n-mighty about that particular flavor of comparing things, I have to admit that I've been a regular in the Compare-n-Despair Arena myself.  Maybe not in comparing which product is better, but in comparing myself against others.  And it really does bring on a sense of despair. 

It's easy to pin "Compare-n-Despair" on social media.  We've all heard the blah-blah-blah about how people only post idealized versions of themselves on social media, and then their friends and followers see those idealized versions and believe that the poster's reality must really be that ideal while the observer, knowing all his or her own messy stuff, compares his or her life, warts and all, to that glossy, idealized version of someone else's life.

I sum this up by saying "We only get to see other people's highlight reels while we have full access to our own bloopers and outtakes."

So we compare our lives as we know them to be and we despair because we don't think they measure up to the version of other people's lives that they present.

I do think there's something to social media contributing to compare-n-despair, but I don't think it's entirely at fault.  This has been going on long before social media became a Thing, though, hasn't it?  We just had to do it from closer range, maybe, back in the day. 

I remember being a kid and noticing that some of my classmates could do math without breaking a sweat, and for me, math tied me up in knots.  I'd compare my skills (or lack thereof) with their skills and despair that mine didn't measure up. 

There were cool, Popular Kids back in school, as I'm sure there are now, still.  Because my school was small, everybody played more than one role, so you'd see cool, Popular Kids also in with the sporty kids and the music nerds.  Our cool, Popular Kids weren't the feathered-blond-hair and popped-collar douchebags that turn up as cool, Popular Kids in every teen movie from the '80s, but there were kids who had ascended to the very apex of the high school social pyramid, even as they interacted with kids from all social strata.  I was not one of those apex CPKs.  I always wondered what I did wrong, why I didn't make that particular cut.  I'd compare their popularity to my lack of fitting in, and I'd despair.  I'd agonize. 

Same with the skinny girls/pretty girls/effortlessly talented girls.  I'd compare my lack of height, my dumb red hair and freckles, my need to put in a LOT of work just to be adequately proficient in something to what they had, and I'd despair. 

It really didn't get any better in college.  There were lots of people who were better writers than me.  They were smarter and more literary, far more clever.  I'd compare my mediocre work with their masterful works of heartbreaking genius and I'd despair.

How dare all these people have a better experience being them than I was having being me?  I mean, seriously?!

Well, again.  We only get to see everybody else's highlight reels while we're stuck with full access to our own bloopers and outtakes. 

But you can imagine my shock when I learned that I'm up on the JumboTron in others' Compare-n-Despair Arenas.  Me!  But why, though?  Don't they know I've got to be one of the top ten most insecure people on the planet?  Don't they know I was constantly compared to the Seinfeld character George Costanza when I was younger?  Not hilarious Jerry or crazy Kramer (thank Gawd, actually), not smart and sassy Elaine?  George Freakin-Loser-Ass Costanza.

Why on earth would anybody be comparing themselves to me and feeling bad about themselves? 

Because all they see is my highlight reel, and they have full access passes to all their own bloopers, outtakes, insecurities, and mistakes. 

It isn't always a bad thing to compare.  It's how we find the best prices.  Sometimes we learn new things by comparing.  Sometimes it DOES motivate us to address a weakness or shortcoming in ourselves.  But comparing too much steals joy from the moment.  And any time you step into Compare-n-Despair Arena, it's going to end in despair, most likely.

I think sometimes, you've really got to be aggressive about noticing what's GOOD with you, instead of comparing yourself to someone else.  If it's hard to find something that's good in yourself, ask someone else.  Sometimes we get stuck in the stories we tell ourselves and need some outside perspective to keep us out of Compare-n-Despair Arena.