Comparison certainly
can be the thief of joy, but it's also inevitable.
It's really not something you have control over.
Unless you live in a bubble, otherwise you're forced to live relative to other people, and comparison will always be there..the disparity will always be there, whether you call it out or not.
And it will always hurt you, maybe even kill.
It won't just show up in your own mind, it will rear its ugly head in plenty of other ways and cost you, affect how you have to navigate the world versus others- people who aren't exactly going to step out of your way.
People who blast that 'comparison' quote/platitude to others and force them to internalize it are monstrous to me. And incredibly disingenuous.
It's either coming from those who had it struck into their skull too many times that they start repeating it and believing they're the problem..or it's the people who have the privileges that others suffer without and they want to blame the victims of the flip side, so that they don't have to address their luck or their benefits.
Privileged people
love comparisons
only when it's on their own terms…don't ever bring up or allude to the fact that you are worse off around them, because they will demand that you pay a hefty price for it..and they have the power and privilege to ensure that you
do pay that price, no matter how much you're already struggling.
But if you think for one second that people don't get off and feel high over the fact that they're in a better position than someone else, then you are mistaken.
"Thank god that's not me" comes to mind.
Comparison can be just as much the thief of joy, as it is the very source of it.
Do you think those who are better off than you, or in general, would feel half as good as they do if they didn't have a pool of other people to compare themselves to positively?
If they didn't have anyone relative to them, whose "less than" status highlighted and ensured their "more than" status?
If they didn't have an audience?
Fuck no they wouldn't.
You can't consider yourself (or be considered) at the top of the totem pole, if there is no totem pole, if there is no middle or bottom.
This is where a lot of patronizing and condescension in our society comes from as well.
Those on high, shouting down below them.
I've said similar before, but achieving superiority is the ultimate goal of mankind.
It's the safest place to be.
(You see it even in children growing up, in sibling dynamics, the fight for resources.)
Even most charitable efforts are done so for the purpose of stroking the ego and patting one's own back - "What a kind and generous person I am, to lend my excess to the less fortunate..now to go tell someone else about it! Maybe a social media post!? Yea..that sounds good. People need to know how much of a Saint I am!"
Reputation, reputation.
Quite frankly it saddens and infuriates me to see people beat themselves over the head for being envious. Or even full of rage.
Envy should not be demonized.
I still can't believe "you're just jealous" is used as an insult or as a way to dismiss someone and shut down conversations.
Anyone who throws that line at someone else is instantly in my shit list.
To those people I say:
You've got to be pretty full of yourself to so much as assume such a thing of someone else and you're also indirectly admitting that the other person has some valid reason to be envious in the first place..which is essentially saying "I am better off than you and you can't stand it, haha you're pathetic!".
I mean..think about it.
Who is the asshole here?
Envy and the reasons why are going to cause far more suffering to the person who experiences them than the one who possesses enviable traits.
Unless someone's envy doesn't make any logical sense (like a billionaire being envious of the wealth of a millionaire)..other than that, it is to be expected and nobody should be made to feel worse about it.
Envy is usually the result of incredible unfairness and living without something(s) that is afforded to others.
Most of the time these things are not meaningless but significant..and usually out of our control or extremely difficult to come by…because if we all had the means to reach the same goals and obtain the same advantages or flattering/feel-good attributes as anyone else, then envy likely would not exist.
It's not toxic. That sentiment is something that was put into people's heads by those who want to place the burden of guilt on the people beneath their boots.
It's an appropriation of someone else's suffering, it's saying "I am the true victim of your victimhood, keep your toxic envy away from me" which is ridiculous.
And no
true victim is going to get away with that narrative. That's the irony. That's the tell.
You should always listen to your envy…ask why it exists, it's usually a sign that something is very wrong..that you are suffering, that you've arrived on the terrible side of an unjust world.
Are other people going to care? No.
Because they don't have to live your life.
But
you should be allowed to care, as it is
you who will bear the consequences of lacking.
Not them.
Again. Think about it.
If someone was starving in a third world country while I had food on my plate, could I really blame them for being resentful?
Then what if I sat beside that person and expected them to watch me shove every last tasty morsel into my mouth while they stood there, trembling, their stomach making sounds of self-consumption.
Would I really turn to their pained and upset face, to state something like "Hmm. You're just jealous! I hope you're not doing something awful like..comparing your situation to mine!"
Then imagine yet another layer..people coming to me, joining my table, complimenting my generous buffet.
While that starving soul still stood there, eyes glazing over, probably desiring to strangle me right about then and grab some crumbs for their poor self.
And why shouldn't they?
(..why
wouldn't they? That's the real question.
Probably because they know exactly what happens to vulnerable or less fortunate people when they confront the fortunate.
More bad things. More hell to pay.)
And as far as searching for things about these people to give yourself a sense of justification for your resentment and despairing feelings…
Go back to the analogy.
If that starving person was stuck standing there, with no other avenues to help themselves or share in my fortune..what else are they to do, but observe?
Look over me with critical eyes and find something worth pointing out.
(Or look down at themselves and try to desperately search for some pleasing or agreeable attribute to comfort them and temporarily raise their tolerance for the tormenting vision cutting into them.)
They would probably even be accurate in their discernment of me, because contrary to popular belief..envy and misfortune are more likely to clear up one's vision of the world and other people than to cloud it.
And it's not pretty.
But that's just reality.
It's like having your eyes forced open by circumstance and never being able to close them again.
There is no rose tint from within misery.
The illusions fade and the opportunities to be fooled wane.
The problem is, that those on the other side of the glass..are rarely going to see things the same way. They're a part of the same world but may inhabit a different personal universe.
So your position will always be a lonely and alienating one, outside of those who are able to understand.
This will cause you to blame yourself even more, even if you don't deserve it.
Now..if you think whoever you're envious of doesn't have any more means than you do to arrive where they have..if you think you could actually accomplish the same but are just refusing to do something about it, then that may be a different story.
But reading your post, it sounds like quite a few of these things that others have around you fall into a category of relatively unattainable..or not attainable with the same ease and thoughtlessness.
Only you can really say for sure, if that's the case or not.
*I also want to add that you should be under no requirement to be "happy for someone else".
I've personally always found this notion to be patently absurd.
If someone else is happy then that should be enough for them, you don't have to force yourself to be happy for someone else if they're happy on their own.
It's just plain greed on their part otherwise.
And it's not really genuinely possible if you are currently unhappy yourself.
Do we require others to "feel miserable for us" because we are miserable?
..surely if we did, those people we expected it of would spit in our faces.
As I've seen happen time and time again (figuratively..but also occasionally literally).
i know how you feel here, and you're right traditional advice doesn't really help so all i can really say is you're absolutely not alone.
my comparison often comes from feeling physically unattractive. in the goth scene, and just online generally, there's tons of room to compare your appearance to other people (clothing, hair, weight, makeup etc.). working with my therapist we've discovered this is a "core belief" i've been made to think true about myself, mainly due to outside influences in my childhood.
what's been helping me recently is visualizing this core belief as a type of really strong (kinda creepy looking) tree, seeping its roots into my brain. you can't take a tree down all at once, you have to cut down its branches and limbs first. small things that can challenge your core belief, or identifying where it comes from in the first place, is an act of cutting down a branch.
not saying it's easy by any means...but i find comfort in the tree metaphor sometimes...
Very sorry you experience this.
However, the issue here is..what happens when someone's "core belief" is unavoidable fact?
Facts that actually affect their ability to thrive and how they are treated by others, etc.
Yes, comparing yourself is a surefire way of robbing yourself of joy, it takes you away from being grateful for what's here. I know, because I've done it, and still work on overcoming it. One useful reframe I've found is that you can use other people as examples! Use them to inspire yourself about what you can do in your life! The only reason to compare yourself is to expand your imagination of what is possible. I've been really surprised in my life by how far the right role models can take you when it comes to your possibilities. In fact, the reason I'm here is because it's almost gotten to the point of being too much to take on, lol. (or at least, that's the story my mind is telling me while trying to hold on to outdated, negative, and unconsciously created self-images).
Hopefully, that helped in some way, just sharing what I've learned to far on this ride called life. And one of those things is that we're actually way more powerful than we believe ourselves to be. And mostly, we're using our unimaginable power to believe that we are powerless. That's pretty powerful if you ask me. <3
I disagree about putting the onus on the person robbed of joy, they're usually not the ones doing the robbing, they're merely acknowledging the differences between themselves and others.
These differences are not something that can be avoided, unless you isolate yourself completely from the rest of society or live by an extreme form of ignorance.
The compartmentalization can lead to other mental issues or outbursts.
Acknowledging differences can actually be a survival mechanism.
If we walk around believing that we are the same as everyone else and will be treated the same, then it will be even more of a shock to the system when we realize that this is simply not the case.
We could actually land ourselves in a whole other world of trouble if we refuse to assess where we stand, whether we like it or not.
Whether it's fair or not.
True equality and balance of fortune/misfortune does not exist in this world.
Some people don't have much to be grateful for.
I've found that "reframing" is akin to deluding oneself.
Things are the way they are, and that's all there is to it unfortunately.
Unless you were mistaken in your original assessment, reframing things is more of a bandaid fix just asking to be ripped off.
Sorry to be blunt, it's just that in my experience I've come across very insulting and invalidating discourse when it comes to this subject.
Like seeing someone tell a person who lost everything to be grateful that they haven't lost even more..to find joy in the fact that they can sip a glass of water, even if the rest of their life came crashing down.
The implication is that they are at fault for their own misery if they don't do this.
It's rather insane to me.
But I've also never been an "ignorance is bliss" type of person.
I tend to seek out truth even if it harms me, because in all likelihood..if it exists then it already
is harming me, whether I'm aware of the cause or not.
Your advice about finding inspiration is all well and good, I think. I don't mean to dismiss it completely.
But it's not sustainable to only cherry pick the people who have lives and success that you have the tools to accomplish.
Especially if they're not strangers, and it's your close circle who you can never entirely escape.
I guess it really depends just how bad off you are and how much you can realistically improve…it's really advice to be taken only on a case by case basis I suppose.
