Thursday, March 14, 2013

14th.

One of my greatest personal struggles has always been that I compare myself to everyone else, or to my own personal standards of what I should be and do. Usually I find myself falling very short of where I thought I should be. It's been such a normal thing, weighing my success or failure by someone else's apparent successes, that it has become such a habit I don't even really realize I am doing it. A bad habit, and like all bad habits, I need to break it, but I have never been able to, my whole life.
 
One day casually perusing Pinterest, I saw this- and boom. Like a thousand pound weight was dropped right in my hands.
 
It has not left my mind since. Every time I find myself looking at another persons life and measuring mine against theirs, this statement immediately follows, and stops me dead in my tracks. It is so true. It is inescapable. All joy in who you are and where your life is at will disappear the minute you look at someone else and begin to compare. It has been rocking my world. Then, a few days ago, my extremely wise friend Amy posted this quote and it took the concept to an even deeper place.

"Comparison is holding up the worst part of yourself
 to the best parts of someone else.
 It destroys relationships."

Stop.
Go back, and read that again.
Slowly.
 Let it sink into your heart.

You will never have a clear picture of who you truly are, or be able to appreciate the small victories and accomplishments in your own life, when you are looking at somebody else and their accomplishments, because we never allow others to see our mistakes and struggles if we can possibly help it! So what we see in others is only the smallest portion of who they are. 

3 comments:

Gretchen said...

Missed you yesterday here. This is a topic for me, as well, as I'm sure you know. Would love to talk to you and bounce ideas around. Love you!

Anonymous said...

This is so good and so true. It reminds me of something I read by Henri Nouwen a few years ago that really stuck with me and had a strong impact on my life:

"'In the house of my Father there are many places to live,” Jesus says. Each child of God has there his or her unique place, all of them places of God. I have to let go of all comparison, all rivalry and competition and surrender to the Father’s love. This requires a leap of faith because I have little experience of non-comparing love and do not know the healing power of such a love."

I like how he connects it to surrendering to God's love - such a foreign concept to us to be loved without comparison or condition, but where we find our healing. I've found that when I do surrender and when this does seep into my life it changes not only my own joy and the way I view myself but also has had a huge impact on how I view and treat others. And, when I find myself most afraid, most hesitant to act, most insecure, and honestly most miserable it is often when I fall back into my default mode of love as something to earn or prove myself worthy of.

Maybe Jesus had some of this in mind when he spoke of perfect love casting out fear. I really long for that kind of love to become my default instead and drive out comparison and the fear of not being enough and the ridiculous need to hide my struggles and weaknesses. What a more powerful, light-filled, joyous place to live.

Thanks for bringing this topic up today. I, for one, really needed it!

Priscilla said...

That is so very good Daisha! Wow. This should have been the blog post instead. I was half asleep when I wrote it... Haha! What a terrific concept. And I agree, my love and joy in others is so much more genuine, and comes so much more freely when I am not caught up in comparison. Thanks for sharing this! :)