I know of no better way to cultivate a rich experience of helplessness and discontent than to spend some time comparing yourself to others.
torpor? oh yeah!
wound-licking? step right this way!
soul-level suffocation? mmmhmmmmmm…
I could look right now and see which of my musician friends have more spotify plays than me. I could compare daily as the numbers change…
I could count comments or likes, see which cities other artists have played in, watch who they’re collaborating with, who they’re touring with…
I could fill my poetic mind with sighing as I watch the most popular songs on earth populate with choruses so catchy and insipid it could make me doubt my entire ability to communicate…
I could dive head first into the existential dread on tap from the seemingly unstoppable powers behind generative AI, and how that may (or may not) affect my livelihood in the next few years…
I could go back and listen to my favorite songs and wonder what’s wrong with me that I can’t write like them. can’t sing like them. can’t play like them. can’t produce like them. don’t release as often as them. don’t look like them…
I could go through my long list of friends and acquaintances and compare myself to them—things, houses, experiences, cars, travels, etc, that we don’t have. how things turned out different for us—better for them…
and if I wanted to be inexpressibly miserable, that’s what I would do. compare—looking for all the ways in which I am lacking, and all the ways in which they possess something desirable.
what is the point of going on? I might find myself shouting into my self-made abyss of meaninglessness (a truly horrifying abyss).
but that is no way to live. or at least, no way to live well.
yet, I would like to make a positive case for comparison. it is not without its benefits when rightly ordered…
if I find myself wandering on that withering trail, of comparing myself negatively to others, one of the most helpful things for me is to shift my thinking.
instead of thinking: they have ________ and I don’t.
think: they have ________ and I don’t—is there something I can learn from them?
I find in my tendency toward comparison the desire to acquire something that someone else has. if I leave that desire unchecked, unmodulated, it is (and stays) ugly. the clutching, grasping hand… but if I will change my approach to how I am seeing this person and the unique ways they are gifted, then I become humble and make myself a learner.
and in the process of making myself a learner, I open my hands and heart towards the ways they carry their gifting. my open hands are more likely to catch/receive something.
and I am often reminded that I am not them—I am me. thank God. I will never be them. will never do what they can do, have what they have, write/sing/look like they do. may never have the attention and accolades that they do.
and I will never know all the hidden burdens they carry.
but I do not believe God put us here now for attention and accolades. rather, it seems to me that we were made in the image and likeness of God to carry that into the world through our giftings, in our relationships, through the ways we walk in the world, in the ways we “image” God to the world, to the whole cosmos.
this is the branching tree.
this is the laden branch.
this is the fruit that lasts.
instead of: they are _________, and I am not.
think: they are _________, and I am not. I am me—thank God!
if you feel the choking suggestions of comparison coming to rob you of your joy, I encourage you to get humble and make yourself a learner, to enumerate your blessings/reasons for gratitude and not your sorrows.
I speak this to my own soul.
thanks for being here. I write weekly sharing poetry, songs, musings, thoughts on creative life, and hopefully some encouragement… my first collection of poetry, Snowmelt to Roots, is available here at my shop, (or on Amazon—leave a review!). and my music is available here.
peace,
Z