How to Fight Comparison
by Kelly Stamps
I was talking to a friend this week about things that affect women. Isolation, Loneliness, Feeling overwhelmed……….these seemed at the top of the list of challenges we women face.
But the thing we agreed seems to be the biggest challenge to women is a 10 letter word that can completely destroy your happiness and self worth:
COMPARISON
Do you suffer from it?
It’s impossible not to. This crazy Internet world we all live in – we are bombarded with pretty pictures on facebook, updates about amazing vacations, new homes, brilliant children, Prince charming husbands. We take a look at our own lives and we can’t live up.
Suddenly the homes we love look small and dirty and cluttered. Our husbands seem unromantic and boring. Our wardrobes are small and our bodies are not what we wish they could be. We trade in our love for our best possessions for wishes of things we think we want but really don’t exist.
How do you fight it? How do you keep the comparison game away? Do you count your blessings? Do you find joy in the mundane? Do you get perspective by looking at those less fortunate or remembering how lucky you are to have what you DO have? Do you look for gifts each day like Ann Voskamp challenges?
I just turned 40. My hair is gray. I have wrinkles around my eyes. My body does NOT look like a college co-ed anymore. It can be a little depressing. And then I think about classmates from high school and college who are gone already. I’m lucky enough to still be here to enjoy my friends and family – that is worth all the wrinkles I have acquired.
FIGHT IT.
Fight the urge to compare yourself to other women, to other moms, to other wives. God created you to be YOU. He made you with the crooked nose or wide hips for a reason. He made you the mom of your kids because he knew you would be the BEST mom for them. He paired you with your husband because he knew you would be the best help mates for each other. He has you living where you are for a reason. He wants you to find joy in where He has you.
My oldest daughter is headed to kindergarten this year and it might not happen in the next year or two but she will start comparing herself to others. And I dread that. I have two girls. I want them to be confident in who they are and avoid the comparison trap. I worry about myself comparing either girl to their classmates – socially, academically or athletically. I hope that I will always see how unique they are and celebrate their individual strengths so they will celebrate themselves! I try to teach them even now that life is not fair and we don’t always win or succeed. I just want them to be happy with who they are as much as I want the same feeling for myself.
How do you stop comparing and start being happy in your circumstances?
Well, look at you, Kelly! I had no idea you were writing here! Sometimes, I have to just simply choose to NOT look at a blog if I start to feel like I am becoming discontent. I did my own study through the Scriptures once, marking every time the word {or a derivative of} “joy” was used. I did word studies and read commentaries if necessary; I learned that God commands us to come into His presence with joy. It’s a form of worship, and it’s bound up in His character. So when I read a blog, I look at it as a testimonial of God’s goodness on behalf of those He loves (even non-believers, whether they acknowledge it or not) and I make the choice to rejoice with them. With that mindset, there is no need to compare- God loves us each so individually and He will always act with the very best in mind toward each of us in innumerable ways both big and small, “trivial” or not.
Amen Kelly! I just did Andy Stanley’s study on comparison and I really struggle with it too. But there’s no win in comparison!
This is all so true. I am not on facebook partly to avoid that temptation, that is right for me for now not necessarily forever. Seven years ago I was told I would likely need treatment to have kids but now have three kids God gave me without any at all. So when I am tempted to compare my kids (which I am) I remind myself of how heartsick I was in the year I lived under the doctor’s words instead of my God’s and get marvelling at their existence and every blessing thereafter instead.