I remember having a conversation with a friend a while back where I commented on how, around some friends, I feel like I have not kept up financially. It was the kind of admission that feels slightly uncomfortable to make– particularly in light of the fact that objectively, I have nothing to complain about. The feeling is, the nagging anxiety is there, but I know it does not match objective reality. I am much to be grateful for. His response, which was true, is that this kind of comparison is a surefire road to misery. He was, of course, 100% correct.
It was also challenging to hear though, because I also know this to be true. I was not commenting because I was wondering about whether comparison was healthy, or would make me happy. The unhappiness that comes from comparing ourselves to others has been well understood for millennia. Most major philosophies and religions warn against it in one form or another. Modern psychology has backed this up. And yet here I was, aware of all of this, and nonetheless comparing myself to others and feeling worse for it.
That is the paradox. We know comparison makes us unhappy, and we continue to do it anyway. Not because we are careless or undisciplined, but because comparison is intrinsic to how our minds work. Telling ourselves not to compare is about as effective as telling ourselves not to see colors. Tell someone to think of anything they want, just don’t think of an elephant, and an elephant is exactly what comes to mind.
This points to something broader. The instruction not to do something is only the first step. Actually not doing it is something else entirely—especially when we are talking about tendencies that are baked into what it means to be human. Comparison is part of being a social species. In the same way, we are wired to prefer immediate rewards over long-term ones, to seek pleasure and avoid pain. These tendencies are not incidental, they are fundamental. And they are also a large part of how and why we suffer.
Take loss. Loss is painful, and so we avoid it whenever we can. But loss is also unavoidable. Our bodies age, break down, and eventually fail. No one is particularly excited about this. And yet, when it happens, we often react as though something has gone wrong. But why me? What have I done to deserve this? I exercised, I ate well, I did everything “right,” and still—this is happening. We all know that we will age and get sick, and we are also indignant when it happens to me. Like comparing oneself to others, what we know to be true, and how the moment hits us, are different.
Given all of this, what are we supposed to do?
In one sense, nothing. We cannot change our nature, and we cannot change some of the fundamental conditions of life. We will compare ourselves to others. We will seek pleasure and avoid pain. We will experience loss. The problem is not that these things happen. The problem is how often we act as though they should not happen.
There is a real cost to arguing with reality. The more we insist that something fundamental to the human experience should not be happening, the more friction we create. Comparison becomes, “I shouldn’t feel this way.” Pain becomes, “This shouldn’t hurt.” Aging becomes, “This shouldn’t be happening to me.” The common thread is not the experience itself, but our resistance to it.
What changes, then, is not whether these tendencies arise, but how we relate to them.
When I notice myself comparing, the most helpful move is often the simplest one: to see it clearly. Not to justify it, and not to try to eliminate it, but to recognize it for what it is. My brain is doing what human brains do. This is not a personal failing. It is a pattern. When the feeling comes up that I am behind or I don’t have X, the drowning in quicksand sense of needing to run faster, and can simply notice that happening in my brain and say, Ah, there you go comparing again.
From there, a few things tend to follow—not as strategies to force a different outcome, but as natural extensions of seeing more clearly.
For me, that comparison loses some of its power when it becomes more grounded in reality. It is easy to compare ourselves to an idea of someone’s life, and the feel behind (think, Instagram). It is harder to maintain that comparison when we know the details. The more I actually know people—their constraints, their struggles, the happiness they feel, the tradeoffs they’ve made—the less compelling the comparison becomes. People are people, no matter how good the vacation photos look.
Comparison can be a useful signal, if we let it be. Instead of shutting it down as a maladaptive means to misery, it can point toward something we value if we allow ourselves to be curious. If I feel a pull when I see someone else’s financial situation, that may reflect a desire for security, or freedom, or status. That is worth understanding. The comparison, and the feelings of inadequacy or loss or whatever that gets triggered might actually be a signal of our own needs or fears or worries. In order to find that out though, we have to be curious about why these feelings come up in the first place.
There is a Buddhist concept called sympathetic joy—the practice of taking genuine pleasure in the happiness of others. This is not always easy, but it can change the experience entirely. Instead of someone else’s success diminishing ours, or leading to feelings of loss or anxiety or insecurity, it becomes something we can participate in. We can be happy for their success.
Lastly, we can recognize that these feelings are universal. This is where I felt missed in the opening vignette. Everyone has had these experiences, in some way or another. When we share them with each other, and find that they are mirrored back to us, we feel less alone with them. I was essentially berating myself for being so stupid as to compare myself to others. And yet, hearing from a friend, “Yes, I have done that too” makes me feel less alone with it, less a member of the only one club.
None of this works all the time. Even with awareness, even with practice, even with connection, there are still moments where comparison hooks us, where it feels real and personal and difficult to shake. That, too, is part of the deal. We do not graduate out of being human.
The goal is not to eliminate comparison, or pain, or any other part of the human experience. The goal is to stop arguing with the fact that they are here, to lessen the weight they bring at any one moment. When we do that—when we loosen our grip on how things are supposed to be—we create a different kind of freedom. Not freedom from these experiences, but freedom within them.
Love,
Doc
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