Comparing Our Differences

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“Confidence isn’t thinking you’re better than anyone else, it’s realizing that you have no reason to compare yourself to anyone else.” – Maryam Hasnaa

This was originally published on 6/15/2022. Heads up – you may have already read this.

My 6-year-old daughter came home from school the other day and said she had a bad day. She explained saying that a kid on the playground was comparing her. Not understanding, I asked her to say more. She relayed that he was saying, “I can do the monkey bars faster. I can go longer. I can skip more bars.”

Oh, I get it – comparing.

We are all different – so why do we compare? To get some perspective, I turned to research professor Brené Brown’s book Atlas of the Heart. She defines comparison as “Comparison is the crush of conformity from one side and competition from the other – it’s trying to simultaneously fit in and stand out.”

And apparently, we all do comparison: “Researchers Jerry Suls, René Martin, and Ladd Wheeler explain that ‘comparing the self with others, either intentionally or unintentionally, is a pervasive social phenomenon.’”

So we all do comparison but what we have control over is how we let it affect us. I was struck by a comment I heard on a 10 Percent Happier podcast with TV commentator and author Alicia Menendez. She talked about management assessment she once did that measured the difference between who one naturally is with the way one self-presents in the work environment to show how much one is self-correcting. The evaluator said to her “So, you are a very introverted person who is overcompensating to be very extroverted in the environment you are in. You are really tired at the end of the day, aren’t you?”

Changing from who we are is exhausting. Maybe we do it because we compare or maybe we do it because we are self-conscious. When I decided to have kids as a single-person at age 46, I was self-conscious of being different. Not that there aren’t other older, single mothers in the world but because there weren’t any in my direct experience.

Comparison to what I thought was the norm made me feel ashamed. It was only after I knew I didn’t want to pass that on to my children that I started owning my differences. That has freed me to do many other things like the post I wrote last week about how I choose to use the time that I otherwise might spend being in a relationship to listen to podcasts and read great books. We are all different, might as well enjoy it. Reading the research that Brené Brown includes in her book reminds me that I don’t have to teach my children not to compare. I only have to teach them to understand how it affects them.

As Brené says about comparing herself to the swimmer in the lane next to hers, “My new strategy is to look at the person in the lane next to me, and say to myself, as if I’m talking to them, Have a great swim. That way I acknowledge the inevitable and make a conscious decision to wish them well and return to my swim.”

I also written today about how creativity might be one of our biggest assets for our resumes: Creativity as a Job Skill

(featured photo from Pexels)

37 thoughts on “Comparing Our Differences”

  1. Brene’s exercise is brilliant.. wish another success, so that you’re celebrating alongside them rather than sulking. Wow! Thanks for sharing that, Wynne! I’ll need to keep that in mind.

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  2. Oh my goodness…three words that lift me up, always: “own my differences”. It took me a while to find that place of comfort and occasionally I forget and need to climb back into the saddle. Thanks for the reminder, dear Wynne. 🥰

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  3. I enjoyed the swimming analogy. We used to tell our daughter that she could control her swimming but had no control in who was in the lane next to her. In college, as a PAC 12 swimmer, it was often an Olympian. She learned to do her best, but not compare herself to those at that level.

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  6. I spent too many years of my life trying to fit in, to be “normal”, and I think that people have a radar when we’re trying to do exactly that, and they’re only too happy to point out ALL the ways we aren’t succeeding! That was my experience anyway. As soon as I started embracing myself just as I am and not trying to fit into anyone else’s ideas of “normal”, I found that I didn’t have anyone trying to critique me anymore. That was eye-opening to me! (I decided to give you a shout out on my post scheduled for Saturday. I realized that what you wrote seemed to fit neatly into a post I was working on. Kismet!)

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      1. I did find that so interesting! When I wasn’t fully embracing who I was, I desperately wished the criticism would stop, and nothing I could do made it go away. Until I taught myself to like myself and embrace who I was, I was really astounded how people reacted to me differently. It was as though they read a completely different energy and reacted to that.

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  7. I love this post as it reminds me of the saying, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” It really is. And I lament the parents that do this so publicly with their kids.

    I like your swimming comment at the end. It acknowledges we’re all in our journey and the only thing we should compare ourselves against is ourself. When we’re able to get to that mindset, it feels so secure and freeing.

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  8. I need to save this post and come back to it Wynne! I can attest to the crush of conformity and competition. In my own life, I’ve seen how it has helped me (rise up from humble origins) and hurt me (made me question myself.) I love the swimming example. I try to remind myself too that we’re all running different races. I could be on mile 20 abd the next person is just starting. It’s hard for me though not to play the comparison game. Ugh. Hence I need to come back to your post in the future. Ha ha!

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  9. I struggle with health issues and see other people my age doing this and that and I’m just over here lookin like a potato… it’s ok tho. I’m not in competition with others. I have limits and that’s ok! I just strive to be a better ME every day!

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  10. I loved this. What came to mind is ‘comparison is the thief of joy’. I used to be the person who’d turn myself into a pretzel to become what I thought I should be. Thank goodness that having children gives us a chance to do things differently!

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  11. Love – “My new strategy is to look at the person in the lane next to me, and say to myself, as if I’m talking to them, Have a great swim. That way I acknowledge the inevitable and make a conscious decision to wish them well and return to my swim.” – This is right on!

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  12. I once read a quote “Comparison is the thief of joy.” It’s so true. We’re all different and following our own path so why do we bother comparing ourselves to others? It never ends well. I used to tell my kids that there will always be someone smarter, faster, funnier, with a newer cellphone, etc. than them so they should just decide if they’re happy with where they are and leave it at that instead of playing the comparson game.

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  13. «Owning my differences» is such a great wisdom. And I believe more in comparing ourselves with ourselves to see what we have gained & achieved through the years or when we have a goal, rather than comparing ourselves with others.
    It is certainly not an easy task in real life, but it is like doing exercise, it can be done regularly. By becoming aware of our habitual patterns and working on accepting them, we can be able to work towards changing them.

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  14. Pingback: Giving ourselves permission to be “less than” others, but still 100% ourselves – Tamara Kulish

  15. It’s so hard not to compare ourselves to others, especially if you’re unsure of yourself, and have a deep seated fear of not fitting in with the popular crowd. At our age, we’re not supposed to notice or care what others are doing. Hah! I do both but I’m a lot slyer than I was in my youth. Even so, it does matter a lot less today than it did when my kids were growing up and I was trying to portray an image of proficiency and confidence (I had neither). I’m a work in progress, aren’t we all, and it might be good to remember that. Hugs, C

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  16. This makes me think of the quote, “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.” It’s exhausting trying to be someone you are not. 💞💞💞

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