Thursday 19 April 2012

Annal 153: Tale from the Comparison Game

Pretty sure we have all played the comparison game.  You know the one.  It's where you (ladies) look at another woman walking past you.  For about the five seconds that she is in your line of vision you do a thorough comparison between her and yourself.  She is so much skinnier than you are.  Her hair looks perfect while your own looks like it jumped out of the '80s.  She has a man on her arm gazing adoringly at her while you have no one.  She is beautiful.  You just... aren't.

Sometimes we play the game in reverse.  Sometimes you look at another woman and think how your butt is definitely smaller than hers.  Pretty sure your eyes are more striking.  You look skinnier than her.

It is a brutal game.  We do a number on our own self-esteems and learn to tear others apart to make ourselves feel better.  It's kind of like a gladiator arena of the mind.

I don't know if guys deal with this comparison game like women do.  Or if they do it is probably just to a different extent.

The fact is: we always compare where we are at with where others are at.

I'm incredibly guilty of this.  I do it in multiple areas of of my life.  For a long time I would compare how my relationship with God was with how others' relationships appeared to be.  As long as I "appeared" to be doing better than them I figured I was okay.  Or I would compare my single, still-in-school self with the women I knew who were several years younger than me and already married with children.  Or there is just the good old physical comparison.

It is a nasty, nasty cycle to get caught up in.

The other day I was reading in, shock of all shocks, The Hope of the Gospel, and MacDonald sad something interesting.  Here it is:

"...the doer of right grows better and humbler, and comes nearer to God's heart as nearer to his likeness; grows more capable of God's own blessedness, and of inheriting the kingdoms of heaven and earth.  To be made greater than one's fellows is the offered reward of hell, and involves no greatness; to be made greater than one's self, is the divine reward, and involves a real greatness.  A man might be set above all his fellows, to be but so much less than he was before; a man  cannot be raised a hair's-breadth above himself, without rising nearer to God."

When I went for a walk yesterday morning I was mulling this statement over in my mind.  At that time I was thinking of all the times I have tried to make myself greater than others, or at least on par with others, to feel better about myself.  I thought of the times I have compared myself to some of those closest to me: my family.  I had to come to a realization that I couldn't focus on trying to be like my siblings, or excel at something just a little bit better than they did.  What good would that do?  Would I be any greater?  No. 

This morning while getting ready I was thinking over a conversation I had with a friend about the comparison game. 

Why is it so hard for us to accept that we were created who we are, and that rather that trying to attain what someone else has we should instead be trying to rise nearer to God? 

I thought of the various things I have read in the Old Testament.  Of Saul who wanted to be great and ended up failing.  Of Joshua who wanted to be great before God.

I don't want to play the comparison game.  I want to realize that who I am is who God created me as.  I want to strive toward the ideal that He has in mind, not the ideal that I or society have in mind.

I want to be great in His eyes.

Such is the life of a Christian single.

2 comments:

  1. "I don't want to play the comparison game. I want to realize that who I am is who God created me as. I want to strive toward the ideal that He has in mind, not the ideal that I or society have in mind."

    That sums up my heart. I am so frustrated with myself for continually trying to conform to someone else's idea of myself, or even my own misguided idea.

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    1. We do get caught up in the whirlwind of comparison so easily. I guess I figure if the people I compare myself to and am trying to be like are comparing themselves to others, who are comparing themselves to others, then no matter what I am never going to be happy. Why put myself through that? I would much rather focus on being the woman God has intended for me to be--I figure that will be much more fulfilling!

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