To the Person Who Feels "Less Than"
some real help if you've fallen into the comparison trap
To the person who doesn’t feel good enough or doesn’t think she has enough,
Do you want to know a big secret into why we tend to have these general feelings of not-enough-ness?
Making composites.
This is what we do: we become jealous of different parts of other people’s lives and wind up feeling like everyone has everything we want.
The Best Parts of Everyone
We do this in marriage: Chelsea’s husband did a really romantic scavenger hunt for Valentine’s Day, but yours forgot. Greg took Britney on an anniversary getaway, but you guys just went to Outback? Liv’s husband makes enough money for her to be a stay-at-home mom, and she complains about the job you’ve always dreamed of. And Ryan, well…Ryan has a six-pack, and your husband isn’t exactly chiseled.
We do this with appearance, too: Sara gets to buy Target clothes that aren’t on clearance. Anne thrifts everything but looks great because she’s skinny enough to pull off anything. Liz is your age but she looks ten years younger than you. Joy is meeting all her fitness goals and you’re grossed out by the sheer square footage of your own skin.
And with the home? Kyla’s rocking the neutrals—even her kids look like boho masterpieces. Megan figured out to use what she has and her house is gorgeously “cozy minimalist.” Leah is homesteading and her kitchen is tiny but still somehow beautiful. You’re certain that everyone has a better kitchen than your 1990’s rental.
One more thing: achievements! You’re overwhelmed with your one kid and Cristina has four and seems to be thriving. You’ve been trying to grow your IG following for over a year, and Nora’s already hit 10k. You’re 30 and just now going back to school, but Madi just moved to NYC for an uppity architecture firm.
In our brains, there’s this idea of “everyone” who has all the best things from hundreds of different people. Our minds know better, but deep down it feels like all these people exist who have a cute, trim body and lovely home and thriving side-hustle and wonderful kids and a rich husband who does romantic, thoughtful things. We make composites. We imagine it’s possible to have hundreds of ideals that could never be achieved in one—or five—lifetimes. And it’s killing us.
Even lifestyle influencers don’t have all those things. But they’re being paid to have an enviable life! Oftentimes, the popularity of influencers preys on the fact that you wish you were them. Watching their lives is putting yourself in a fantasy where you vacation every other week and your whole life is as “bright and airy” as the filters they use.
How To Get Out of the Trap
So what do we do about it?
First, figure out what makes you feel bad about yourself. Maybe it’s influencers, maybe people you know… I’m not going to tell you to delete Instagram or stop talking to friends that you’re jealous of, because I think we can do something even better:
Celebrate diversity.
Are you surprised by that solution? It’s very healing. Instead of demonizing people who are enjoying success in life, here are some things you can train your mind to say in response:
I’m so grateful she’s sharing positive things. Her home is art and such a pleasant thing to see.
What a gift to her family. I have a lot of good and beautiful things in my life, too.
Wow, she is so gifted at organization. I am not. I’m really good at reading to my kids, though. She might be task-oriented, and I’m more relationship-oriented, and both have their strengths and struggles, so I’ll bet we could help each other grow in the ways that feel more natural to the other person.
Her life is so interesting! What a fun season for her. It seems like I’m supposed to be faithful in the little things right now. Love is an adventure. (Check out the song “World Traveler” by Andrew Peterson.)
She enjoys running, and I do not. I’m glad there are people who enjoy nature and movement like that. I enjoy nature in other ways, and I like to move by taking long walks. Maybe I could make that more of a priority.
She seems to be doing so many things at once, but I have a lower capacity of what I can handle. That’s okay. I’m really good at digging deep and loving well.
Let’s say you’re a writer and you struggle with comparing yourself with much more successful authors, such as J.R.R. Tolkien (author of Lord of the Rings.) S.D. Smith has said that, yes, you can’t write like Tolkien. But Tolkien can’t write like you. Someone made a meme about it:
You can’t cook like Ina Garten, but Ina Garten can’t cook like you. You don’t have the voice of Alicia Keys, but she doesn’t have yours. You may never get the platform of Kim Kardashian, but she could never influence others in the way that you can.
Helping Your Kids Fight Comparison
Your kids are probably going to struggle with comparison, too. But I think we make a toxic mistake in our efforts to feel better: we make them judgmental.
“Wow, your art project is the best in the class. You’re super advanced.”
“You’re just the prettiest girl in the whole world.”
“We don’t want to be addicted to screens like the Johnson kids, right?”
What tends to happen when kids spend a lot of headspace putting others down in order to compensate for their own lack of confidence? They’ll feel better than everyone for awhile, but eventually they’ll realize that people are better than them at some things, and their whole basis of confidence will crash and burn. Pride isn’t the antidote to insecurity.
However, when we have a charitable view towards others, we will probably be more gracious with ourselves, too.
We’ll talk about this more in our month focusing on bravery (October), but hopefully this helped you today.
Warmly,
Hope from Family Scripts
Other letters in this series:
To The Person Who Feels Unsupported
Mudita 😍