Comparisons – a quick slide to hell

Today I revisited this old pattern. Fairly consistently in my past, my mind would see someone who was better educated, or seen more of the world, or was a good speaker/writer … and make a note of how much I lacked in the comparison. There are always people I admire for one thing or another – making fantastic Halloween costumes for their kids, whipping out colorful and accurate spreadsheets, dancing like a pro – the list is endless and covers every nuance of human existence.

Always I ended up on the plug-ugly end of the stick. Until I was sick and tired of being the one who was "less than" everyone else. At that point, I looked around (and always found) someone I could look down on as "less than" me. As I was sucking my self esteem out of someone else (my spiritual vampire number), I could feel an underground niggle of shame, which I usually managed to override.

However, at an essential level, I knew my pretense of being "better than" ANYone else was a sham, which made it easier for my mind to cast me back to being "less than" everyone else … because nobody did that as much as I did (more comparison).

Today, I caught myself comparing the 'now' me to the younger me – not as resilient, vibrant, full of zest as I used to be. Yep, I recognized that subtle (and rapid) slide into hell.

My intent is to allow myself to be as full of admiration and appreciation as I actually feel for all the gifts I and others bring to our world. That is so much easier and much more real and connecting than comparing myself either up or down to someone else – in either case, someone is diminished. And that's not how I want to participate in life.