We’ve all done it at least once in our lives. Looked the the left, right, or straight ahead, and thought, “I wish that I could be/act/look/perform/run/charm more like that per­son. Some (look directly at me) do it more often than we care to admit. It may be nat­ural, but it’s not healthy (par­tic­u­larly if sustained).

I don’t think there is any­thing wrong with admir­ing some­one else’s looks, tal­ent, gifts, or pos­ses­sions. When we turn that admi­ra­tion into com­par­i­son is where things go wrong. Com­par­i­son rarely stays above the water line. No, draw­ing com­par­isons to oth­ers usu­ally drags us deep under the water, and can lead to a slow emo­tional death — drown­ing in anx­i­ety and self-loathing. As Theodore Roo­sevelt said, com­par­i­son is the thief of joy. Does I sound a bit dra­matic? Per­haps, but I’ve come to real­ize that far too much of my life has been spent com­par­ing myself to oth­ers. Try­ing to live up to, or meet, the expec­ta­tions of oth­ers is another prob­lem area, but I’ll deal with that some other time.

When I saw the quote by Roo­sevelt last week, I dis­tinctly remem­bered an exchange with a room­mate dur­ing my fresh­man year in col­lege. As this guy rat­tled off more and more of the things he did back in his home­town, I, unwit­tingly, spit out com­pa­ra­ble things that I did. It went on for a few min­utes before my room­mate finally said, rather stri­dently, “This is not a com­pe­ti­tion! Why do you feel the need to com­pare?” His ques­tion sank in rather quickly, and I was embar­rassed. I didn’t know why I felt the need to go toe-to-toe, round-for-round with him. It’s clear, now, that I wanted to feel as needed, accom­plished, and rec­og­nized for var­i­ous tal­ents and skills.

The ques­tion was, and still is to a lesser degree, what dri­ves that feel­ing? Is it sim­ply ego? Is it less about feel­ing that I’m lack­ing, and more about want­ing to be the cen­ter of atten­tion? Or, is there truly a sense of under­achieve­ment that hounds me? I’d like to believe it’s much more of the lat­ter, but, small or large, we all have an ego. Mine is usu­ally in check, though. I think because I don’t feel that I am par­tic­u­larly gifted (looks or tal­ent), my ego sel­dom gets the bet­ter of me.

As I read more books* about find­ing and fol­low­ing a pas­sion, I have become much more intro­spec­tive about what makes me tick. What dri­ves me. This self exam­i­na­tion has also let me to dis­cover what gnaws at my con­fi­dence. Draw­ing com­par­isons is often the root cause of my angst and spin­ning wheels. The fear of not mov­ing beyond com­par­i­son to some­one else either sti­fles or com­pletely locks up my drive to pur­sue things. This has hap­pened with cre­ative inter­ests, career pur­suits, and even in my rela­tion­ships. I am work­ing on a piece about jeal­ousy, and it occurred to me that draw­ing com­par­isons to other men (would be suit­ors of a woman I’m inter­ested in, or her ex-boyfriends and for­mer lovers) has caused pretty severe anx­i­ety and self-destructive behav­ior. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not an attrac­tive quality.

For­tu­nately, I’m prone to intro­spec­tion and rumi­na­tion. I’m will­ing to look at myself, with as much hon­esty as I can muster. I haven’t quite learned to embrace myself, warts and all, but I’m work­ing on it. Learn­ing to see another per­son and stop at appre­ci­a­tion or admi­ra­tion is my chal­lenge. Very lit­tle, if any­thing, good comes from com­par­ing your­selves to oth­ers. I am work­ing daily on just being myself, trust­ing know­ing that that will be enough.

* Crush It, The Ele­ment