Comparison is the Thief of?
An old boyfriend used to say to me, “When it comes to life, these are the cards we’re dealt, and we have to work with them.” That usually trailed off after he’d gotten in trouble for something—mostly upsetting me—or was just down on his luck. I normally tuned it out, mostly because it went over my head. I’d roll my eyes and think about what a victim he sounded like. It wasn’t until about four years later that I finally got what he meant.
Listen, I’m a slow learner. Actually, that isn’t true. I pick up on things pretty quickly—well, everything except things like chemistry or chess, which is why I never became a nurse or a professor. It also may be why he and I didn’t work out. I misinterpreted what he meant, and the only thing I was right about was that he used a very real metaphor as an excuse for bad behavior. We do get dealt a deck of cards in this life, and it’s up to us to decide how we handle that hand.
In general, I haven’t been writing. Sitting still and typing felt intimidating. Gone were the days of 2017 when I’d stay in bed, hunched over an old laptop with a lukewarm cup of juice sloshing between my lips, coming up with witty sentences to follow a profound truth that I was bold enough to actually write down and share. But lately, I’ve felt this calling in my bones—well, I’ve felt it for a while now—a slow whisper: “Sit down and write.” I just wasn’t sure what to say. Over the past three years, I went back and forth with writing, sharing too much, trying to advise other people when I myself was in the dark. Who am I without my escapades I used to chat about so freely, the ones that make me wince now?
Who am I now? Who am I supposed to be? That was the real question. I had made it to this place of peace, of solid ground—or “exiting survival mode,” as my therapist calls it. Survival mode. That makes me sound like I’d been living in the jungle, or on the run from the Russian military, or trying not to get caught working as an informant with the cartel. None of those scenarios applied. I was a twenty-something living in Washington, D.C., who came from a good family and made a decent salary. So, what was I surviving from? When I found myself judging myself for how good I had it, I knew my answer. I was surviving me—and things done to me that resulted in me belittling my own experience. I assumed that if things were okay on the outside, if they appeared good, that meant they were good. And thus, I was surviving. Hell, I was living. I also was doing a lot of comparing—comparing how good I had it in an attempt to feel better about myself, comparing how I wished I had it in order to punish myself for not being good enough.
Comparison is the bipartisan of perfectionism. And I don’t mean perfectionism like the reality stars on Selling Sunset would describe it. All my clothes and furniture don’t have to be color-coordinated—although it helps. I mean perfectionism like thinking that in order to deserve this life, I had to do everything right—from what’s seen on the outside to the steps taken to get there. I have to persecute and investigate every mistake I have ever made because no one with the results I’ve gotten would dare make the same. I have to plan for the future—from the way my kitchen will look in my dream home to how I’ll secure the down payment for it. And I have to write it all down, day after day, as if convincing God to allow my plans to come to fruition. The more seamless I can make it, the better.
Rudolf Steiner is the creator of the Waldorf schools—schools that are all about vibes and energy. They’re like curated Montessori schools where kids learn about fantasy and invest in imagination first; they don’t learn how to read until like the second grade. Waldorf Schools are notoriously successful, especially in this day and age—an era of fear, where if the President of the United States isn’t threatening our jobs and livelihood, AI is. The Waldorf school is the symbolism of hope. It’s been around for years and will be around for years to come, so whatever they were doing had to be the blueprint, right?
Well, Rudolf believed that reincarnation consisted of karma we collect, and as you make your way up in life, you get lighter and lighter skin-toned in every incarnation. So, you start out African or Black, then Asian, then some sort of Spanish-European, and then, once you’ve reached full good karma, you are white. I need not tell you how absolutely insane that sounds. And though the schools have since denounced this belief, it made me think how blasphemous a person could be to think that you have to look a certain way to be guaranteed a certain life. And then I thought of my own—my patterns, my daily fight for perfectionism, my need to convince others that I have earned the life I portray. I believed for so long that I had to be perfect, do everything right, to get to the great things I have now.
It is a specific type of self-harm and punishment that I personally believe would grant me the ability to survive any kind of mental warfare—but that’s beside the point. For so long, I was moving out of surviving and into safety. By 30, I questioned how I got here and compared the notes of others’ lives that I saw. More so, I would think, Why did they not have to go through some of the things I did? Or How did they know better to avoid certain steps I took?
It more recently dawned on me: What if others thought similarly about me? From strangers on the internet to those as close as my siblings, have I also made it look easy? Are we all comparing each other's journeys based on assumption?
Stay with me here—I questioned: Have I, in return, made this experience of how I am living look easy and enjoyable? Truly, it hasn’t all been hard. Sure, there were moments that were heavier, darker—times I wasn’t proud of. But there’s also been a lot of adventure, laughter, and fun. I guess that’s the point. We are supposed to bear witness to the whole story and only share what we want others to know.
So, comparison is really the result of subjectivity. It’s not so much about swimming to shore, but what you do once your fingertips touch the dry sand, and how you are able to digest where you’ve been. My life before 30 has been beautiful. But beautiful does not mean perfect by any means. So, when I see someone younger who, at certain ages, seems to be sailing when I felt like I was sinking, or someone my age who is eons ahead of me—I compare. But really, I have to remember: I only see them once they’ve made it to shore. I don’t know what it took for them to get there.
Most times, though, when comparing—whether scrolling online, listening to a friend of a friend talk about their life at brunch, or lending an ear to a random coworker humble brag about their workload—I’ve asked, internally of course, Why me? Why not me? If you ask whether I have considered the art of gratitude, if I have said my affirmations today, the answer is yes. I listened to the podcast, said the repetitive statements in the mirror, and journaled until my hand began to cramp. Still, though, there is this sneaky voice in my head that just says, You’re not good enough—that’s why it didn’t happen for you. You made the wrong choice—that’s why that happened to you.
See, I could write about how comparison is the thief of joy, and if you just pray enough, if you just look at the good enough, that voice will go away. But the truth is, it might not. You may just have days where you scroll on Instagram, and see that person celebrating the engagement you wish to have one day; or LinkedIn, and the person who got the job you’d love to work; or Facebook, and your younger cousin that just moved to the state you dreamed of living in. You are going to compare because it’s human nature.
It doesn’t matter whether you went to a Waldorf school or a public high school with a graduating class of 1,000 people. We are so immersed in our own individual worlds that sometimes the thought of other people’s real existence only seems like fantasy—more ammo for us to covet. Comparing yourself is okay because, in reality, we are human—it’s more natural than we think. Whether we are in this capitalistic society or cavemen looking at the neighbor in the carved-out boulder over, comparison reminds us of two things: One, if there is something we want, we have to go after it. And two, there may be something innately repressed in ourselves that is making us feel bad. Your stomach can only flip so many times before you decide to do something about it. I know it feels like this should be the point where I say, You never know what others are going through... Take a social media cleanse. Give yourself grace. But look, as someone who currently spends all her time on Pinterest and Zillow, I still feel the comparative moments. And that nag has reminded me that there are unresolved things I still have to shake out. There is something about me that I have to discover. To be honest, though, it’s probably something from my childhood. Somewhere along the line, little Ivana wasn’t told she was loved enough, didn’t feel worth it, or made a mistake that felt like the end of the world, and never learned to forgive herself—only to say sorry and do whatever she could to make others around her feel better. So when I see someone now, in my adulthood, living out some part of their life, instead of being innately happy for them—yeah, sometimes I compare.
Comparison isn’t hating, though. I, and most people, don’t want to take down the person I’m comparing myself to. I don’t want the relationship that seems so sweet and safe to be broken up so I can feel better—I just wish I had that version of sweetness and safety for myself at certain times. I don’t want someone to lose their job once they get that promotion—I just feel for the version of me that was working a job I loathed because I wasn’t sure yet which direction I wanted to go in my own career.
In that same breath, if someone were to look at me—whether I am gutsy enough to post a “modest, but borderline thirst trap” on Instagram, or sitting across the table enthralled in an old story about this guy I used to date and the whimsical adventure that it was for the time, or even finally sharing my writing again—there may be someone who is comparing themselves to me, unintentionally. Whether it be friend, family, or stranger, I just want it to be known that everything that glitters isn’t gold. There are things I longed for desperately, but they just weren’t in my cards. There are experiences I wish I could erase from the history of this earth, but they serve as subtle reminders of how far I’ve come. There are moments where I compare too, and I’m working on it every single day. That doesn’t mean it’s going to completely disappear—like one day, I’ll wake up so in love with myself that I will never need to compare myself again. (If that were the case, a lot of spiritual podcasters would be out of a job.) But it does mean that you (and I, quite frankly) can give ourselves a bit of grace when it comes to comparing—because it’s a nod to where we are, where we’ve been, and where we are going. And most importantly, no one on this planet is uniquely you. No one has your story, no matter how similar it may seem