When two things are next to each other we’re forced to compare them.  It’s human nature to look at what’s around us and automatically see what we perceive as lacking.  This Includes our own lives.  Looking at who we were with who we are.  Who we are with who we want to be. It’s a rare thing to look at something and just take it in and realize that some things don’t need to be qualified and organized into any sort of hierarchy.  We’re born to be on the lookout for the “other” as a survival mechanism and we are now socially trained to look at whatever anyone else is doing and see how it looks in accordance with our lives, with our current location.  The issue with comparison in that regard is we automatically devalue one thing over another—again, including our own lives.  The assumption that something is better or looks more like what we think it should means that there is something wrong with the presence of the item being compared.  There is so much context in this world and so many trite sayings I could whip up/find that talk about staying in our lane and simply following the steps/journey we are on—and they’re all true.  We are where we are because that is the journey we are meant to have.  We’re where we are meant to be because if we were meant to be anywhere else, that’s where we would be. That’s not to speak about the need to get things going and motivation and whatnot, just that the path we are meant to be on always finds us.      

As I was saying, there is a reason we compare and there’s even a time it may be helpful, however, we live in this land of perception where because we think someone else has something we want that they must be doing better.  The truth is it’s all relative and this life is not one size fits all.  Wayne W. Dyer says, “Relax, let go, allow, and recognize that some of your desires are about how you think your world should be rather than how it is in that moment.”  We creep into the land of the Should’s and suddenly nothing is enough and everything is wrong.  A mentor once told me, “If you live your life in should, you’ll end up should-ing all over yourself.”  When we think we “should” be something we lose sight of what we are and we trap ourselves in that comparison—and when we live in comparison we never really learn to develop along our own path.  For as long as humans have been around, we haven’t mastered this concept that comparison really serves very little purpose.  We’ve evolved as a species to develop and create amazing things yet we are stuck with this lizard brain component of our minds that still thinks being different means death.  I’ve seen plenty of people I know are alive but they’ve never really lived for the sake of adhering to the rules they were given earlier in life.  Comparison robs us of the lives we are meant to have—you know what they say about living the same year 90 times and not calling it living.

The point in this is that there is value in everything that exists in this world so on that basis alone, there is no need to compare.  We can talk apples and oranges for example.  While they are both fruit, they each provide different nutrients, they taste different, they grow in different environments with different requirements.  That doesn’t mean one is any better than the other—each serves its purpose.  It’s the differences that make things special and the same is true for us.  Humans are meant to express who they are as they are and that is why we’re each born with specific drives, values, and focus.  Order, similarity, and structure may provide a sense of comfort but that isn’t the essence of who we are.  We are meant to find calmness in our own chaos on our own path.  When we dwell in comparison we let our own unique and needed talents collect dust or wither away.  Trying to be something we are not is the most life draining use of energy we can engage in.  So don’t waste time living in comparison.  Spend that time creating the essence of who we are and if we aren’t sure of it, spend time exploring what feels right to figure it out.  Be authentic and honest and that feeling will never steer us wrong. We can’t compare someone’s light to another because we all shine in our own ways in our own time.  Each lights a different path meant for that individual.  Don’t be the cloud that darkens someone else’s path and don’t let thoughts of “should” darken our own.  Just keep shining.