by Cynde Denson
“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everyone will respect you.” – tao te ching (translation by Stephen Mitchell)
Comparison can be the death-knell of human experience.
This past autumn, my husband and I took our annual camping trip to the Western Slopes of Colorado for what we Coloradans affectionately call the gold rush. We hiked through brilliant gold aspens and cottonwoods, bright green trees whose leaves had not yet turned, dark evergreens and bright orange scrub oaks. All this beauty was against the backdrop of brilliant blue skies and stark grey mountain peaks, snow-capped by early Autumn snow. Each day of our trip provided a unique experience as we explored new places in the ever-changing seasonal landscape. It was breath-taking.
A week earlier a person dear to me on the East coast indicated that the fall colors in New England (my former home) were better than Colorado and asked if I would rather be going to New England. To this I replied quite defensively, “not better, just different”.
It occurs to me that a large degree of distress is created by the comparing mind. That has been my experience. In my formative years, I felt the sting of frequent contrast to my older sister by my family. She was (and is) super smart with a photographic memory and the ability to ace a test easily. Me, not so much. I was a decent student although I had to study harder to get that way (at least that is my story). I also had the “like to party” gene that was incompatible with the honor roll. Alas, my “lesser than” story started young. Mind you, I am not blaming my mother for her efforts to motivate me via comparison. Her mother used this method and the only way she knew to move her kids to excellence. It was generational. It was also difficult. Looking back from my older, wiser self, I see the damage done to my self-confidence by being compared to a sibling completely different than me as opposed to being celebrated for who I was. Can you relate?
The comparison that triggers our negativity bias, or not-good-enoughness, often feels rampant. Advertisers depend on it to sell us any number of products. Consider FOMO (fear of missing out), the apprehension that others are having a better life than we are, as we compare our ostensibly mundane lives to the experiences of others on social media who appear to be having marvelous experiences all the time. Imposter’s syndrome, that common malady of never feeling like you measure up, is born of a culture of comparison.
This is not to say that comparison is always bad. When used wisely, comparison can be a great tool for growth. I once worked with a life coach who encouraged me to approach my challenges by finding someone I admired who had successfully done what I was attempting to do. Once I did that, I said to myself “if they can do it, how hard can it be”? I have used this strategy often when faced with a crisis of confidence about a new endeavor. It works surprisingly well. The astute use of comparison is also essential when we are planning a vacation, making a large purchase or embarking on an important decision. The thing is… It a matter of discernment. Are we using comparison in a skillful way to make a conscious choice or to prove that our current experience is either better or worse than another’s? The latter is what gets us in trouble by engaging our judgmental mind and clouding our decisions.
One of the common ways to get caught in comparison is the “gotta-have” game. In my early late 20’s and early 30’s, I got myself in lots of trouble with this mindset of “gotta-have”. “Gotta-have” that condo, “gotta-have” those overpriced shoes, “gotta-have” those expensive jeans, “gotta-have” that new car. The list was endless, and the resulting financial difficulties caused both grief and awareness of the pitfalls of this path. It was yet another one of those cosmic two-by-four lessons that took me a long time to work myself out of. Thankfully, I had time on my side to do that. According to a July 2021 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finance, the average credit card debt for US families is $6,270. I wonder how much of that is due to societal comparison resulting in “gotta-have”.
About 10 years ago, I read an enlightening article in a national magazine’s special issue on happiness. The piece cited a study of levels of happiness in the residents of a post-World War II residential neighborhood. Initially, there were high levels of satisfaction and happiness among the residents. As time went on, the houses turned over. Often, the new residents tore down the old homes and/or remodeled them into much larger dwellings. Guess what happened to satisfaction among the existing, previously happy residents? You guessed it! It decreased significantly as those in the smaller, older homes compared their previously idyllic lives to a new higher standard of living. Guess what happened to the level of debt? You guessed it again! It went up.
My intent is not to preach about living debt-free, although it is a reasonable concept. It is about encouraging a deep inquiry into how the practice of negative self-comparison may be contributing to personal suffering. How might we become emotionally free if we let go of this binding state of mind?
For answers, I turn to the Eastern traditions that inform my path. In Buddhist psychology, the second Noble Truth tells us that desire (aka attachment, clinging) is one of the causes of human suffering. Logically, the third Noble truth informs us that letting go of desire is one of the ways to end our suffering and find inner freedom. Simply put, comparing ourselves or our current experience to something or someone else usually causes pain. It results in the bad habit of not being present to our current experience. Like all other unhealthy habits, with effort and mindfulness, we can choose to shift it.
How? There is a concept within the ten ethical principles of yoga known as the Yamas and Niyamas called Santosha that speaks beautifully to this predicament. Santosha is the conscious practice of contentment that embodies a deep commitment to returning again and again to the present moment, knowing it is perfect, even during challenging times. This requires self-awareness to recognize the dynamic of our destructive desires. We let go of how we think things should be in favor of how they are and embrace our lives right here, right now. Then as Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron alludes to, we can start where we are to create a path forward.
When we authentically acknowledge that we each bring our unique self to the table of life with all our gifts and all our flaws, we unwind the coils of negative comparison that bind us.
I ask you to consider:
· Where might you be stuck in the spell of comparison?
· How could your life shift if you knew without a doubt that you were enough, had enough, and that your life was enough, just the way it is?
Cynde Denson, is a Mindfulness Instructor, a certified 500-hr Kripalu Yoga Instructor, a certified Vinyasa Yoga instructor, a Facilitator and a Co-Active® Coach. For more information about Cynde’s classes, workshops, and coaching services, click here.
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