Maybe that girl that looks like you but has an ivy league degree just published 8 gazillion intimate engagement photos shot on the Solstice from the Temple of Moon inside the Great Pyramid at Giza with half a million perfect white roses casually strewn about. Maybe. I will just close my laptop and stare into space wishing I could jump into a barrel of wine and punch kittens. The ever refreshing newsfeed provides endless opportunities to compare ourselves to friends and acquaintances along seemingly limitless axes of measure. We all have been faced with our own short comings in comparison to colleagues, peers, and friends repeatedly. Through my own personal window on the world, I see incredible achievement, smiling faces, and perfect relationships. Rationally, I know that what I am seeing is everyone’s highlight reel, prepared for mass consumption on social media. One could reasonably argue that indeed all the perfection is a sign of insecurity and grasping for validation on many levels. It is. But still... I know comparison is insidious. I shouldn’t do it. But it comes so easily, almost unconsciously. I make judgments, assess worth, and am left with a vague feeling cloud instead of a clear articulated belief. The cloud follows me to the next article, post, video, recognition of miraculous achievement by the world’s leaders, and such. I feel, on many levels, like I’m not good enough. Now, I see you waving your hands, telling me that’s not true and demanding I see what incredible value I give to the world and to people who care about me. And I believe it. But somehow, both my unique value and my not being good enough have managed to coexist in my mind for a long time. The mind is not a logical place. Friends instantly throw their hands up and say things like, “No, don’t put that out in the world,” and “You know that’s not true,” or the epic response of frustration and immediate comparison of themselves to me, “Well, if you aren’t good enough, I’m the biggest loser around.” It doesn’t make me feel better. In that moment, when I express doubt in my own self-worth out loud; it is an opportunity to do so much more than just shut me down immediately, which is the nearly universal response. I get it. I understand why this response is the inclination of many. But, I’m not sure that I am looking to feel better necessarily when I express feelings like this. What I am looking for is a solution. A thought algorithm that will release me from the feeling cloud and allow me to see the world through a different window. I’m going out on a limb here, but I think what we want to feel in that moment, is gratitude. So, how can we produce that feeling for each other in moments of need? If instead of instant rejection of my premise, the response was a short inquiry to explore the underpinnings of my beliefs and dispel wild notions from my cortex, the cloud would quickly evaporate. It turns out that under scrutiny, most comparisons don’t stand up. In that moment, friends have the power to transform useless mind structures for each other. That’s powerful. This response does require presence from the inquirer, so you have to make sure you are surrounding yourself with people who genuinely care about you for this to work. For some reason, reality has constructed this exchange to work extremely well in conversation and to not be very convincing at all as a self-inquiry. Meaning, it’s much more difficult to think my way out of the comparison cloud than for a much appreciated, brilliant, loving, amazing cohort to flatly show me what a myopic limiting debbie downer I am embodying in that moment. DEMO SCENARIO Me: “How the eff does so-and-so have a perfectly organized garage and have 50,000 Twitter followers?! I don’t have a garage. I will never have a garage!” Friend: “Do you want a garage? Or 50,000 Twitter followers?” Me: “Maybe!” Friend: “Have you put any thought or effort into obtaining your own garage to organize or winning 50,000 followers?” Me: “Not really.” Friend: “Well, you could move to Walnut Creek, the land of giant perfect garages and buy followers. Will that make you feel better?” Me: “No, that would sort of suck.” Friend: “What are you really after?” Me: ((panic)) “I don’t know. Perfectly stacked Rubbermaid totes? Someone to listen to my ideas.” Friend: “You have those things now.” Me: =) I think, “Oh, I’m actually lucky,” and I feel gratitude for my friend. Many of us struggle with issues of self-worth. And maybe, at the end of the day, someone else does have a perfectly organized garage and way way more Twitter followers than you could imagine are out in the world. But that is rarely the actual point of the original expression of comparison despair. If you listen in, and take a moment to ask some questions, you’ll hear the actual need. Most of the time, the actual need is something that has been there all along that just couldn’t be readily seen. *NOTE:: This tactic of slowing down, paying attention, asking questions accelerates bonding and motivates the shit out of mostly everyone….eventually. ** ADDITIONAL NOTE:: Sometimes people get angry for a minute around the time when you ask, “What are you really after?” Stay cool.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 18:32:52 +0000
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