The Value of Comparison

The phrase stop comparing yourself to other people is not wrong, but it is lacking. We are so used to comparing ourselves with others to know our place in the world that when we stop it, we don't know where we are anymore. We compare ourselves with other people for different reasons. One is to know where we are, the other is to feel better for ourselves because when we see someone in the same hierarchy as ours, and we are above them we feel great.

The problem with comparing yourself with other people is no one share the exact same circumstances. You may be classmates, workmates, or even siblings but there is still distinctions between what you experience. Those are different things, and in that manner, your comparison would be useless because what applies to them doesn't apply to you.

So, why am I saying that comparison is valuable? Because when you compare yourself with the proper object, then you will how to orient yourself in the world. That proper object of comparison is yourself. You need to compare yourself with who you were yesterday. The goal is to become better. But there will be days where you don't grow, are you even regress but that is okay. Growth is not a straight upward slope, it is a continuous cycle of ups and down headed towards an upward direction.

How can we know we are growing? It is hard to know how much you have grown because you see yourself everyday. Small changes to who you are will be unnoticeable in the short term but when you look at the bigger picture, it will all make sense. So don't focus your day-to-day life on checking whether you have grown or not but rather focus on doing what you need to do diligently and with determination because it will inevitably yield results when you do so.

Focus on the process and the results will follow.

We often hear people say the poison of comparison. But I think comparison is not the problem, the problem is who you compare yourself to. You could compare yourself with people who doesn't have the same circumstances as you, but why do we compare?

Fixating your eyes on the things that are not yours makes you lose sight of what you have. It is hard to be grateful when all you see are your insufficiencies. You must learn to focus where you should compare yourself to.