It’s interesting to think that all those things that you want in life, or at least,
think you want, someone else was probably born into having all of it. Yep. From the
umbilical cord straight into your dream life. You had no say in it, and neither did they.
We don’t get to choose what kind of life we’re born into. What kind of family. And
we most definitely don’t get to choose our looks and health at birth. We’re absolutely
powerless, and we know this. Yet, we often go through life having difficulty accepting
it.
But reality is, all you can do is do what you can.
I. I’m thin, always have been, and I’d get teased for it growing up. They’d tell
me that real women have big breasts and more meat on their legs. It made me dislike my
own body. The world would have had to burn down before you’d ever catch me in a tank
top or skinny jeans. Instead, I’d wear sweats all summer, and if I had to look more put-together,
I’d put on three pairs of jeans on top of each other to appear thicker.
To add, I skipped a grade, so I was always shorter than everyone else, which only added
to the teasing.
I think this is a classic example of a situation when the reason you start comparing yourself
in the first place is because someone else starts comparing you first. I was happy with
the way I looked and felt in my own body, until, apparently, others felt the need to
express that there was something wrong with that, and suddenly, you see yourself as flawed
and everyone else seems better in comparison.
It’s been many years since then, by the way. I love my body today. I love my tender
hands and wrists. My body is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. How dare I have
let someone else’s opinion make me question that? I’m so sorry, dear body.
Now you know how I said the world would have had to burn down before anyone ever saw me
in a tank top? The same went for anyone ever seeing me in a ponytail with my ears exposed.
How I would get teased for them! I hated them, so much that whenever I went to get a haircut,
I’d feel a lump in my stomach every time the hairdresser got close to my ears. I’d
feel embarrassed, wondering if they noticed my ears and thought that they were big or
weird. Anytime I ever saw someone else in a ponytail, and they had small ears, I’d
think to myself “do they know how lucky they are? I’d give anything for those ears!”.
Now not to discredit the feelings of my younger self, but, really, if only I would’ve spent
that energy focusing on my math exams, perhaps I would’ve gotten that A.
Oh, and by the way, I learned to love my ears quite some time ago. I. mean, I almost look
like an elf from Harry Potter! And if I get to resemble that… what else could I wish
for in life?! And have you seen my video “I stopped being judgmental”? My ear is literally
glowing in that video, it looks so cool!
Now these are only two examples of things I used to compare a lot, but self-comparison
goes far beyond just looks of course, and we do it all the time. And it’s not always
caused by someone else putting us down—us humans tend to be pretty good at putting ourselves
down, too.
Now, I think self-comparison is inevitable, it’s our way of trying to make sense of
the world and of ourselves. For that reason, I think it’s important to learn how to work
with it instead of work against it, and that’s what I’d like to talk about today.
So, I like to distinguish between three levels of how-I-react when comparing myself. I call
the three levels Dobby, Luna and Hermione
Level Dobby is when self-comparison is purely discouraging and perhaps even destructive.
Level Luna is when you meet self-comparison with neutrality and acceptance. It’s when
the way you view yourself isn’t dependent on who you encounter. It’s when you don’t
let others people or external factors drive your behaviour.
Level Hermione is when self-comparison is encouraging, where you meet it with admiration
and where it inspires self-growth. There might even be a touch of competitiveness to it.
Only fair play, of course. Anything else is Dobby-Level.
Now, there are of course different levels of Dobby, Luna and Hermione, and also, a person
isn’t always one or the other. But generally, I strive for my default mode to be on Level
Luna with the occasional visit to Level Hermione whenever I think it will benefit me.
Where I don’t want to be is Level Dobby, and the first step towards levelling up from
there, is, as with most things, through creating awareness.
Ask yourself, when do you feel that Dobby-level self-comparison creep in?
Is it when you look at mansions on Pinterest? Is it when you’re on TikTok? Is it when
you see that 19 year old dude on Instagram who’s making millions? Is it when you visit
your aunt who won’t zip it about why you aren’t married yet while everyone else your
age is? Do you tend to compare yourself to friends or family?
Take note of any patterns that you notice and write it down. If you follow this channel
and you still haven’t purchased a journal…? Purchase a journal.
Now, this is of course only useful if you’re completely honest with yourself. I feel like
I talk about honesty in almost every video, but it really is that important.
And look, honesty can be scary. It can feel embarrassing and make you uncomfortable. We
may not want to admit to ourselves that we’re comparing ourselves to our friends or to people
we see online or whoever it might be.
But in my experience, not confronting those feelings will make you view the world as your
rival, and that might turn into envy or even resentment, two of the least pretty words
in the English language.
Once you start identifying these patterns, there are two things that I think are helpful:
1) First, I separate myself from anything that I find puts me on Dobby-level. If it’s
social media, if it’s a friend, anything that I have the power of separating myself
from, I will. Anything else would be me intentionally feeding toxicity into my life, and you do
realize how that sounds? And of course, if it’s a friend or another person in your
life, you should probably have a conversation first, let them know how you feel and so on,
depending on the situation and all of that, that’s a whole different topic.
1) Second, and this is probably the most important step, I try to understand the root of what
it is about those things that make me feel that way about myself. For example, why do
I feel terrible when seeing fitness accounts online? Why can’t I stand seeing anyone
do better than me at work? Is it because I feel like I lack discipline and it takes a
toll on my confidence? Is it because I know that I can do better but I’m too lazy and
I don’t want to face it?
Whatever it might be, these were just some examples.
The point is, we all have things we need to work on. Whether it’s our self-esteem, control
issues or jealousy.
Now obviously, we need to talk about social media when talking about self-comparison.
I just want you to know, as surely as you know that the sky is blue, or cloudy if you
live in Sweden, or foggy if you live in London, that not all things are as they seem, and
you have absolutely no idea what’s going on behind the scenes.
You can’t compare a page or two from someone’s book to your entire book and call it fair
judgment. Even the happiest stories will have pages of sorrow, and even the saddest stories
will have pages of happiness.
And that was all for today.