'The Thief Of Joy'

You Don't Compare The Sun and The Moon. 

Both the sun and moon shine and have their time. They’re both beautiful in their own right, and so are you. You don’t need to compare yourself to someone else, it’s both unhelpful and unnecessary. It’s a standard belief within our society that comparison can be used for a positive effect, many believe that at times, comparing yourself to the circumstances of someone else may in fact allow you to come to terms with all the things you do have rather than the things you do not, to be grateful due to the belief that there is always someone ‘worse off than you’. Years in the education system, yet we are never taught to love ourselves. Where could you be? Where should you be? What more could you have? How could you better yourself? What should you look like? What diet should you be on? What beliefs should you have? Questions that are constantly racing in our heads, plastered on our walls and displayed on our televisions. Those questions have some value to have dreams and ambitions, to set your intentions and believe. But what about accepting you are already shining where and as you are?

Personally, I stand by Roosevelt in the fact that ‘comparison is the thief of joy’. Even if it’s for a supposedly ‘good’ outcome, comparing your life to someone else’s in order to focus on what you have has negative reinforcements. By using the lows of others to bring out the highs in yourself, you are putting someone else below you, putting them down and putting yourself on a pedestal above them, rather than learning to be grateful for what you have regardless of what others have. Connecting with your own gratitude and fortune can be achieved without comparing. I support the energy of placing yourself on one’s thrown, as long as everyone else can place their thrones around you. You don’t have to place yourself above in order to validate yourself. There’s room for acknowledging others beauty without taking from your own. To lift and be proud of others without negative judgement or talk, and to empower both yourself and others simultaneously.

I believe that by lowering others to raise yourself, you are not acknowledging your thoughts, you are simply allowing yourself to only be grateful for what you have through empathising or feeling bad for someone else. That’s not necessary when it comes to feeling content in your own skin and it’s not getting rid of them, it’s a quick fix and a way of brushing them under the carpet. Comparison doesn’t just have to be about abilities or image, it can snake its way into even comparing our own paths, mentality, personality or any aspect of our existence. We compare our individual journeys and forget that although we are all living our lives, that life has its full right to be its own. Never mind the saying ‘you can’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle’, in my book it’s more like ‘you can’t compare your beginning to someone else’s beginning’.

I think the only time comparison can be valuable is when considering the magic of our individuality, by comparing that there is no higher and lower, there is only ‘equal but different’, and different is to be celebrated. But in the competitive climate we live in, it is extremely difficult not to let our differences become our downfalls, to let yourself slip into the waters of comparison without suddenly finding that you’ve forgotten how to swim. I sure let the habit of comparison into my life with open arms growing up and still find myself doing it now. But I am able to catch myself before I fall, I can recognise when my thoughts lead me down that rocky path and not allow them to control me or my worth. I simply look at the path but stop myself from walking down it and allow my direction and focus to shift. I used to get to the path and run, skip and jump, I was stuck in the habit of comparing to others rather than allowing my own identity to flourish and journey to unfold.

As social media grows, we are often invested in others’ lives or how we believe others see or value us, rather than living our own life. Don’t get me wrong, social media has its positives, the ability to connect and communicate, the business and the availability of sources and education, but for me the negative effects can definitely outweigh the positives. Cyberbullying, distraction and lack of facades aside, comparison comes amongst those negatives and I fell deep into the trap of letting this become a habit that was doing nothing other than make me unhappy. I was using it to look at other people’s lives instead of living my own. I now stand by the statement ‘if it’s not making you happy, walk away from it’. We all do it, scroll aimlessly, and look at others on their holidays or nights out with friends, whilst we forget to place the same attention on our own.

Sometimes we can feel jealous. But we all get jealous, I think it’s an emotion that’s as valid as happiness and you shouldn’t reject it, let it in. Feeling jealous only comes when you feel envy towards someone or something else, that doesn’t make you a bad person. It’s what you then do with that jealously that can affect the person you are. Let it in but don’t like it influence how you operate. You can be happy for others highs without it influencing your lows, consider why you’re jealous and how it can help you discover more about yourself. You have the power to not let the jealously hinder you, but expand you in making your own choices.

Remember that beauty comes in more than one form, it’s not something that’s standard or has rules, despite what our society and media feeds us. We don’t compare a sunflower to a daisy, they’re both flowers and they are both beautiful. Yet when it comes to humans we hold the idea that one also has to trump the other. We can often become hyper focused on what we cannot control and what doesn’t actually matter when living a fulfilled life, even more so, how much it can cause distress and unhappiness. We are all different and should embrace that rather than spend our time wishing we were someone else. How much we require body fat and our thighs may brush together or not simply due to the structure of our pelvis, hip and knees. Airbrushing, make-up, genetics. None of these cross our mind and as a result we can change the way we view ourselves. We have to remember that not every photo portrays everyone’s true self. Embrace your own strengths, your own beauty and your own worth, as you.