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Friday, May 8, 2015

The Greatest Thief of Joy.





Let’s talk about the elephant in the room; the bigger, brighter, better elephant in the room.

Let’s ignore the fact that you have an adorable baby ellie in your corner, and focus entirely on the one beside the gal over there. 

It’s shinier than yours, clearly designer brand, and has 300 more likes than yours.  

If I’ve already lost you, stop reading my blog at stoplights! You’ve probably merely missed a few key words that evidently cohesively tie together my metaphor obstacle course! If you’re still with me, let me jump to the point—it doesn’t matter how great or not-so-great your life is, the quickest and easiest way to make yourself feel inferior is by comparing your life to someone else’s

The reality in this bizarre fictional fantasy, is the uncomfortable familiarity it may have in your life. Although you probably can’t relate to possessing a literal pet pachyderm, I hope that you’ve equated that image to something you deal with on a daily basis. It might be your wardrobe; maybe you feel surrounded by people who seem to have missed their flight to LaGuardia for their Teen Vogue shoot, and are now crushing all self-confidence your set of humble threads originally clothed you with. It could be something non-material; maybe it’s not what you are wearing, but an activity you feel eternally novice at. Despite your brave and motivated attempts at maintaining a fitness routine at the gym, you always find yourself looking like an uncoordinated fool in the back of the Zumba class. [Like, seriously, am I the only one who has been to a Zumba class and two songs in starts questioning when everyone else learned these routines? I’m convinced they’re all just organized flash mobs that ironically get you to think you’re “exercising” together, because there is NO WAY you’re all this naturally smooth at dancing along to this vaguely recognizable Shakira song. Let’s be real, your hips ARE lying… there’s something you all aren’t telling me!] Perhaps instead of a repeated activity, it’s a singular experience you find yourself comparing. Maybe your friend or group of friends are all experiencing something that you did not have the opportunity to partake in. Maybe during your time at your college-prep High School they all studied abroad in exotic places like Scotland and Italy during their winter term, while you stayed in the states, fulfilling the semester requirements in a less adventurous way by taking a rubber stamping class… for the second year in a row… because that was the most exciting elective available. [Totally NOT personal experience… do I look like someone who knows the proper seven steps toward a solid embossing technique, or the best tools to make a clean ink transfer? I obviously went on a pricey but super exotic EDUCATIONAL trip around the BEST places in France…like the Eiffel Tower and that really cool museum and that ahhmazing park whose names are oddly enough all escaping me now.] Whether it’s a thing, a skill, or an experience… I’m willing to bet there has been a time when you found yourself in an internal comparison battle you never even meant to compete in.

I wish I could explore this struggle from an unbiased, research-based opinion piece, in which I unpack some interesting discoveries I learned second-hand. This is one topic I truly wish I was a novice at. I wish I had no idea what it was like to succumb to the terrible habit of disillusioned perspective. But I want my blog to be genuinely me, and since honesty and authenticity go hand in hand, I vow to be transparent in the truths I share. So, for starters, yeah okay, maybe I didn’t go to Paris during my winter term in High School. Instead I took classes offered at our school… in Illinois. I am not kidding when I say I took two consecutive winter terms of rubber stamping. I’m pretty sure you’re technically not allowed to retake the same course and receive multiple credits… but I signed up anyway and slid through registration red-flags on that one. [So let’s keep this hush-hush. I don’t want my High School Diploma revoked. Besides, I already used some permanent alcohol-free adhesive to mount it on a thick cardstock medium, with a subtle shade of pink ink transferred via roller to make it stand out from the boring beige.] It’s not that I didn’t enjoy aspects of this unique art class offering, but the context in which I partook in this course was mostly financially driven—and entirely out of my control. My family couldn’t afford to send me to Europe for a three week trip—as “educational” as it was. Instead I had to choose a course offering from the handful being taught locally at my school. It was a fairly easy decision given the choices I did have control over, but it didn’t stop me from subtly sulking during that term as I watched my friends post fun exciting touristy pictures on Facebook [I should note I went to HS pre-Instagram.], while I embarrassingly filed my homemade gift-card holder in my figurative filing cabinet of “uncoolness”. [It’s really more of a briefcase. I don’t have THAT much coolness-compromising material to conceal.] Although these pictures of my friends’ European escapades were filled with such joy, I allowed them to rob me of my own. I didn’t even allow myself to feel joy or excitement over learning a new craft, because I allowed someone else’s experience/opportunity/possession to discredit the value of my own. 

While comparison can come out of anywhere, I’ve found there’s no better place for it to cultivate than on social media. I probably don’t have to explain the commonality of teens/young adults using social media platforms such as Instagram to solicit validation—it’s a fairly understood social construct. What I do want to highlight, however, is that same phenomenon flipped on its head. Soliciting validation through “likes”, comments, or shares is an individualistic approach to the activity that plays out on a platform that involves a world-wide community. Instagram is a great platform for publishing content with the opportunity to receive direct feedback, but I believe its greater social power lies in the contextual stigma it fosters. What you put out into the social media world is one thing, but the content you simultaneously or alternatively consume can breed completely warranted but entirely unwanted comparison. Posting a picture of you and your friends on Spring Break in Arizona can come from a place of fun and well-intentioned sharing. Likewise, scrolling through a feed full of other individuals’ Spring Break pictures can be well-intentioned curiosity that unintentionally leads to internal benchmarking and reevaluation of your own comparable experiences, opportunities, or possessions, when you find a picture of your classmates on a beach in Cabo. I’m not saying social media is bad, I’m just highlighting the social norms that have grown from these virtual social communities that could have negative impacts on your outlook. In an era infiltrated with filtered social sharing, it’s unprecedentedly important to recognize how your daily habits—albeit virtual—directly impact the filter or lens through which you view your own life.

So that’s great Christie, you mulled over a petty problem when you were younger and retrospectively have learned from it, but where does this play out now? 

First, thanks for the rhetorical question, I was going to have to utilize some terrible third-person transition to move on to present-day application. Second, I would be lying if I said this was a lesson learned—emphasis on the ‘-ed’. Instead it’s a lesson I’m VERY MUCH STILL learning. Sure, I have a broader perspective on the circumstances that create the gap in inequality. I get that many of my classmates in High School came from privileged double-income households who could afford a 3 week trip to study abroad, while my family didn’t have that discretionary income available. I understand that I can attend as many Zumba classes, or hip-hop workshops as my fitness regimen allows, but I’ll always be a little more lanky and uncoordinated than some of the other students, because that’s how I am built.  And there will be days that I feel inadequate next to someone wearing a beautiful polished outfit from J. Crew, knowing I can only afford H&M. Every day I decide to open my computer, turn on my phone, or even step out of the house, is a day I’m susceptible to the struggle of comparison. As a result, it’s not a matter of if I’ll have to deal with this again—it’s a matter of when I’ll have to deal with this again and how I’ll choose to approach it.

I’m twenty-three years old, and EVERY day I open my computer, turn on my phone, and step out of the house. And every day I’m faced with opportunities to mindlessly mope about what I don’t have or choose to show gracious gratitude for what I do. If I have one piece of advice for those who struggle with the same seemingly futile battle, it’s this: don’t confuse contextual awareness with critical comparison. I’m not encouraging you to ignore what’s around you. Your friends/loved ones will always have something going on—stay present in their lives. Read their tweets. Follow their posts. By all means, like their pictures! Rejoice in their joy and empathize with their pain, but don’t allow it to warp your self-reflection. Your sense of value and self-worth should never come from the things you can’t have or can’t do—but rather all the things you are.
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