… or disillusion?
“The big question about how people behave is whether they’ve got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard.” – Warren Buffet. So wise Buffet!
I wish I was taller like person X, I wish I was thinner like person Y, I wish I had it all under control like my friend Z… I, together with the rest of humanity, can continue wishing and ultimately comparing ourselves to others, yet the end results are always somewhat damaging. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side and I’ve seen this first hand.
Life often feels like a web full of comparative traps, where we’ve got the opportunity to bounce away and live for ourselves, or to get sucked in hoping for something which may not even be in realistic reach for us. Easier said than done, right? At each and every juncture of our lives, there is potential to compare ourselves to others, which gives us a false sense of achievement, leaving so much room for failure and feeling inadequate. But if we know this so loud and clearly, why (the hell) do we always do it?
Throughout the last 3 years of being a mama, I can count the endless junctures for comparing, which made me question if I was a good enough mum or if I was doing things wrong. And this is all too common. I’ve been blessed with two kiddos who are physically advanced, who have crawled at 4 months, stood at 6, walked by 11 months. Yet spoken a lot later than their mini peers. What did I do wrong that their vocab wasn’t as quick? Did I only focus on the physical and fine motor skills? Is something wrong with them? There’s also been moments when I’ve thought I’ve got it so wrong (again) as they won’t sleep in a buggy, or never slept through the night from 8 weeks, or still have a dummy, or or or….!
The danger of living in this comparative state is that you will never feel good enough, there will always be the potential to experience inadequacies. This often leads us to only looking at what we don’t have, instead of all our blessings and what we do indeed have.
Comparisons allow others to be in your drivers seat, dictating how we live, what we do, how we react. It’s all for the external, and this will ultimately be self destructive, as what’s next? If we don’t control the us, who will? And what’s worse, when looking towards others, we often compare their greatest and best traits to our average and not always best ones. Failure waiting to happen. Time to chuck this distorted lens and stop peering through what appears as rose tinted glasses.
Playing and not always winning at someone else’s scorecard ain’t easy! It’s not what matters in this world. What’s the point of winning the wrong game? Pointless. However, when comparisons are doing positively, then it’s a win-win. If you use someone else as a blueprint to where you want to get to, say for example in the business world, then you can observe, study and utilise their procedures to get from A-B. It’s not about wanting to be person X, it’s more about wanting to adopt successful and proven strategies than do indeed work.
A biggie in this comparison jungle is that far too often people only put out the censored, praiseworthy and well groomed version of oneself. Just think how many selfies we’ve all taken and posted, probably get 1 good one out of 10? So what’s out there for the world to see, is not always reality as we experience it. We censor what we want others to see, so when comparisons occur, it is based on an edited, maybe contrived version of ourselves. How can we compare our raw selves with fictionalised versions of others? Not apples for apples, right? This is so damaging and to me, pointless.
Sadly in today’s chaotic world, we look to compare externalities. We compare looks, weight, wealth, jobs, status. But is this really only who we are? How often do you hear I wish I was as compassionate as X, or as empathetic as person Y, or I wish I could be as charitable as person Z. Imagine the focus shifted to the internal scorecard? Imagine! Hardly ever. This is a fault with society.
And with this COVID crap, it feels, for me at least, that all the superfluous outer things which aren’t important have started to dissolve when we can’t always hide behind what’s not really us. It’s so clear for me. The real me / us are emerging loud and clear, vulnerable and questioning. But how beautiful if we could start looking to compare positively. To stop the BS of wanting to be the Jones!
July 26, 2020