Comparison is the thief of joy
Comparison is the thief of joy
Comparison is the thief of joy
If only someone prominent said that very damned thing 70 years ago. This entire thread could have been solved in an instant.
Oh hey I actually didn’t know that was a Teddy Roosevelt quote til I googled it just now. I just thought it was some kind of proverb
Depends on how realistic your expectations are for yourself.
If your comparison is aspirational, identifying places where others succeed so you can figure out how to adopt their methods yourself, it can be quite beneficial.
If you’re not adopting an active-improvement mindset, and you’re essentially just dick-measuring, then yeah you’re eventually gonna be miserable. There’s always a bigger dick.
I agree to about 50% of that.
Comes misery?
The other 50% is that comparison does not cause misery.
Depends what you’re comparing to. One of the ways I deal with stuff I’m finding unpleasant is to compare the experience to a worse situation. My work can be stressful, but at least I don’t work 9to5, 48 weeks a year like so many people do. I’m renovating a house and it’s exhausting and such a long commitment, but at least I’m in good health. Many of my friends have health problems that would make heavy labour and climbing on roofs impossible, so when I’m tired and achy at the end of a day I try and see it as a sign of my good health and strength.
Obviously, if I compared myself to a younger and fitter person, whose knees wouldn’t hurt and didn’t need to wear wrist braces, that could make me feel bad or envious and that would be dumb. Only make comparisons that highlight how lucky you are to be you.
“If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.” - Desiderata
Yes
I read about the lives of terrorists, mass murderers, and I feel so much better lol
Because at least I’m not that fucked up
Not if you only hang out with losers!
Or if you’re already the best, have the biggest weenie, etc…like me.
You’re the best until you are not. Then they are the best until they are not. Then they are the best until they are not.
I think comparison can be accompanied by misery but I don’t think it’s inevitable. I don’t know if it’s possible to go your whole life and not compare yourself to anyone, ever, on any metric. Some people are better than I am at some things, and I learn by comparing myself to them. I think the trick is to not condense it all down into a single spectrum. I mean that for broad moral judgements (e.g. “I am a better person than my boss”) as well as in particular domains (“My co-worker is a worse coder than I am”). I think that type of quick judgement can always be peeled apart and analyzed, and learned from, and I think that resolves a lot of the tension that typically comes from comparison.
In some forms, but we also cant improve if we have no idea what to compare too.
I’d say yes, as this is what i’m currently experiencing (by comparing myself to others). I’d agree with @agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works’s stance. If you’re not trying to improve and just bashing yourself, you will go down a spiral of misery. I feel like the self-improvement part requires some balance though. You can use this comparison as a source of intrinsic motivation, but you need to keep it from becoming too much to where you become demotivated, keep telling yourself that it is possible, that you can do this.
