Comparing yourself with others is not a wise investment.

Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

Albert Einstein

We all are unique, yet we all have moments where we compare ourselves with others. We don’t find joy in doing so, but our mind makes us constantly think of that which others have and we don’t. It would be great if our mind can do the act of comparison in a positive way, like comparing the adversities that others have and we don’t. But, interestingly, it does the opposite. It only showcases the pleasures and luxuries that we don’t have and the others do. If not addressed well, our own mind can eventually make us believe that we are good for nothing.

The majority of us, beginning from our childhood, may have experienced the bitterness of comparisons, being almost always told about the aspects that we are poor at compared to the ‘good’ others. 

We often hear our parents (or elders) say, “See how well your cousin studies and gets good marks; see how well behaved your other classmates are or see how others have topped their class or in sports, etc.” Though said with a hope to improve the performance of a person, in reality, such comparisons cause pain for a while, and over a period of time, they tend to shape the person’s life’s reality in an unhealthy way. 

If people around us, be it our peers or superiors, make us feel inferior by covering our significant good side and highlight our insignificant bad side, then we become determined to achieve that which can prove others wrong and ourselves as great, even at the cost of working against our true nature.

Somehow, we bought into the culture of working hard to become always better than others. And this ‘becoming better’ is more about the outcomes that are related to social and financial status. The urge to become better is centered more on “how will I be valued” in family, society, etc. 

No matter how much we achieve, if the tendencies to compare with others don’t go away, we will still be unhappy. 

Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” 

However, comparing oneself with others may seem like an unavoidable task in the current circumstances. No matter how hard we try to restrict ourselves from doing so, but due to our past experiences and the environment we live in, we may be forced to constantly compare and, hence, compete with others..

If comparing with others can deprive us of the joy or happiness that we wanted to have, then investing our time, energy, and money to become better than others or to become like someone else will be an unwise investment. Isn’t it?

This brings us to a very important question,

“Can we get rid of our propensity to compare ourselves with others?”

We cannot entirely curb our tendencies to compare but we can try to intelligently dovetail them by having higher perspectives as mentioned below.