Comparison is the thief of joy.
Theodore Roosevelt
I have a confession to make... I rarely struggle with comparison. That doesn't mean I never struggle with comparing myself to others, its just not a besetting issue for me. Don't worry, I haven't found the secret to a perfect life, I have plenty of other besetting issues to keep me humble. Plenty.
I have been thinking about comparison quite a bit lately. Mostly because this issue has been bandied about quite frequently in recent years, primarily due to the abundance of social online sharing. That voyeuristic ability of ours to glimpse into strangers (and close friends) every day lives seems to be the culprit for all our discontent. Anyone who is not living under a rock now has access into their neighbors living rooms and they often look much better than our own. Thus the thoughts like: "Gosh, my house is a dump!" or "Those people sure have terrific A+ kiddos." or "Her body is a 10 and I am only a solid 6.5!" start to roll like NASDAQ statistics through our minds.
It's silly really. I mean really silly. All of us are well aware that ain't nobody got a perfect life. My life is not perfect. I have inner struggles, outer struggles, people struggles, health struggles, husband struggles, children struggles, friend struggles, family struggles...I could go on. But, when I visit social media platforms and scroll through beautiful photos of other's well curated homes, or awesome vacations, or adorable fluffy pets that don't seem to pee on their beautiful hardwood floors, I don't think, "Geez, I am a big fat loser. Their lives look like awesomesauce. What am I missing?" I generally think, "Wow! I love that cabinet color they just chose! Let's paint the kitchen!" or "Oooh! I love that state park they just visited! I am going to put that on my list of places I would like to see!" I am inspired by what I see, not deflated by it. I love the thought of taking the little corners of the world that we are given and making them more beautiful. That fills me up.
I think the rhetoric needs to change on this subject of comparison big time. Because the truth is, any of us have photo worthy lives, period. The point isn't moaning for a life we don't have, but recognizing the beauty that is already present. Beauty is everywhere. Pretty dishes from a garage sale. A favorite book. Flowers. A good meal. A dear friend. Family. I like to snap pictures of that stuff. I like to share it. Those things inspire me. They don't cost much. They don't need to.
Thanks to Goodwill and garage sales, we all can have picture worthy homes. A tiny apartment with well curated nooks and crannies can be as beautiful as a 10 bedroom, 7 bath home in Bel Air. A tiny pot of geraniums on a windowsill are as beautiful as the gardens of Buckingham Palace. Its seeing it. Its observing. Its gratitude. Its appreciation for the very smallest of things.
There have been times I have hesitated to post on social media because I didn't want to make anyone "feel bad." I might be inspired by the way the light is falling across my dining room table or something fun my kids are doing but I hesitate to share because someone might think I am what...bragging? showing off? Dumb. I share because my heart is so full of gratitude for the little things. The moments that disappear so quickly but are so beautiful my heart literally aches with the joy of it.
I show photos of our wacky vacations because I want to remember them. Because, maybe someone will see a place we visit and think, "Oooh! I'm going to put that on my list of places to see!" Sure we got mosquito bites, the kids were whiny, we didn't always sleep that good, but heck! we got to see things we had never seen before! It's worth it.
I am kind of tired of societal insecurity, being threatened by the perceived "betterness" of others. I have lived all over and in every kind of living abode imaginable. There have been places I have like a lot better than others. Probably the worst was when we lived in California. We lived in dumpy military housing. They were dorm-like apartments with way to many families in one unit. Most of the apartments were actually being condemned but we lived in them anyway. I had a wildcat toddler and a husband away at sea. I was so overwhelmed and sleep deprived that I couldn't see my way to making the cramped little apartment a home. My mom and sister knew that if I was too tired to decorate something was terribly wrong. They drove down from Oregon and totally rearranged and set up my home. I can't tell you what that did for me. I felt like a new person. They took the stuff I already had in an uninspiring apartment and made it a home for me. We didn't really have social media way back in 2006, actually I think I started a Myspace account. ha! But, let me tell you, I would have been instagramming the heck outta that place!! Nothing had changed really, except a simple rearrangement of what I already had, but really, everything had changed, mostly, my perspective.
I guess that is what I am trying to get at. Our social perspective has to change if we are going to maintain a healthy mental head space on what our lives look like. If we are discontent, maybe its not the other guy having it together, maybe its us not seeing with clear eyes what is right infront of us. Maybe we need to rearrange the lives we already have. Maybe that means physical rearrangement. Maybe its more mental maneuvering. Whatever that might be, we have a lot more power than we are aware of to arrange the pieces of our lives into something beautiful and soul inspiring. Instead of wasting energy comparing, lets spur each other on, inspire one another to find joy in the journey and to share it, not with pride, but with deep, deep gratitude.
