A life of comparisons
So does a blog count as social media?….
I’m going to say no….
So far, this whole “break from social media and self love” journey has been going well. For the most part, I’ve been trying to journal my thoughts and put them on paper. Something I’ve never been good at doing unless I’m depressed (see writing section). However, there are some things that I write about that I think many of you may relate to. One such topic is comparisons.
As I’ve said previously, I have a love-hate relationship with social media. It’s inspires me, but it has also made me feel like my life is sub-par and that I’m a failure.
Why is this?
Because rather than loving the life I have, I compare my life to others.
This isn’t something new. I’ve suffered at the hands of my own thoughts since I was about 10 or 11.
It is my honest belief that comparing ourselves isn’t something we we are born doing: it’s a learned trait.
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” - Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Growing up, I had a very dysfunctional family—don’t we all. But how do I start breaking this shit down….?
I guess we will start with the family dynamic.
When people have asked if I’m the oldest or if I have any siblings, I always respond, “I have two younger sisters and an older half sister.” EVERY. SINGLE. DAMN. TIME. I don’t mean to discount my older half-sister, but she wasn’t treated or held to the same standards as I was.
We can discuss how fucked up that is another time.
Because of how we were treated differently, I have always considered myself the oldest.
My sister Abby is 3 years younger than me. I love my sister dearly, but for a good portion of my adolescent and teenage life, I was compared to her. CONSTANTLY.
Abby and I are black and white—with a little bit of grey if you’re making a Venn diagram.
She’s blonde. I’m brunette.
I’m hyper. She’s calm.
She liked naps. I liked running in circles.
I could play by myself. She needed friends to play with.
She made straight A’s. I got A’s and B’s.
I was messy. She was neat.
She was normal. I was “mentally ill” for being ADD….
The list goes on and on.
We look different.
We act different.
We have different interests.
We are almost complete opposites, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, rather than our differences being celebrated, they were used as a weapon against me.
I cannot tell you how many times I was told, “Why can’t you be neat like Abby?” “Why can’t you make straight A’s like Abby?” “Why can’t you behave like Abby?”…
It was never ending.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when it started, but eventually I began comparing myself to her too.
To me, she was the shiny new penny and I was the tarnished one. The one no one wanted. I felt like I was a mistake and that I should have never existed. I felt like Abby was the perfect child and I would never be good enough. Eventually, these feelings culminated into an eating disorder that began when I was 14 and lasted until I was about 19.
All I wanted to do was be enough. And I never was.
But what’s the point of this story.
The point is, there was once a time I didn’t compare myself. When I was younger—and more carefree— and was told “why can’t you be more like Abby,” I just let it roll off me and did my own thing. There was a period of my life that I didn’t care that I wasn’t Abby. I was just…me.
Eventually though, I learned to compare myself as well, and that habit is one I still haven’t completely broken.
Nowadays, I don’t compare myself to my sister. But with social media at my fingertips, it’s been all too easy to compare myself to others still.
Most of my comparisons have focused on what I consider “success.” For me, it’s been things such as being able to buy a house, to afford the car I actually want, to have to money to just drop on things.
You may be thinking, “Kaitlyn, you fucking travel all the time. Shut the fuck up.”
But the thing is, I make sacrifices to travel. I don’t often go out to eat or drink. I rarely buy myself things. (I recently bought clothes for a trip, but on a normal year, I’ve maybe bought myself 1-2 dresses or jeans.) I wear my shoes into the ground until the soles are literally falling off and I have to be told I need to buy new shoes. I live with roommates to lower my rent. I bought a cheaper car rather than the one I wanted. I can’t afford those luxuries and also travel.
And when I travel…I stay in hostels. I don’t go dropping money on every tourist attraction. I don’t eat out a ton and I limit some of my experiences so that I can do more in other ways.
But that’s what I want.
I want to have my cake and eat it too.
It’s not that I want to make a ton of money. I just want to do a job I love, make a little bit more, and have more vacation time. Emphasis on the vacation time.
Sometimes I’ve compared how much others get to travel vs me. How they are always seemingly living their best life while I’m stuck waiting for the next adventure.
But the worst is when I compare myself—who i am.
I don’t compare the way I look to models, but I have to girls that guys have—for lack of a better word—chosen over me. I have torn myself to pieces comparing myself to them. Wondering why I wasn’t good enough. Determining if they were prettier, skinnier, happier, more carefree, more put together…or deciding that I guess maybe “there’s something fundamentally wrong with who I am.” Those comparisons are by far the worst because I move from comparing myself to tearing down everything that makes me, me.
The reality is comparing does absolutely nothing positive for anyone. We all know this. No one ever finishes comparing themselves and feels better—at least I never have. And yet for some reason, I’ve continued to periodically do it.
Recently, I’ve been working on being grateful for my life and being happy for others rather than jealous—not that I’m not also happy for them, but I want my happiness to eclipse any envy.
I have absolutely no right to ever complain about my life.
I am healthy. I don’t have any debilitating disorders or injuries that limit me. I have a healthy and able body that I can push to extremes and can do amazing things.
I have a mind that—while overthinking in nature— doesn’t limit me. In fact, it allows me to comprehend and question more of the world than most.
And the fact I can afford to live in a city, to buy any type of car, to travel? Well that’s just icing on the fucking cake.
Each one of these things are a luxury, and sometimes I forget that and take it for granted. So many people have it much worse than me and would kill to be in my shoes. There are people born with genetic disorders in which their life expectancy is about 18 years at best. There are people who develop MS or get in car accidents and lose the ability to control their body. And the worst? There are people who lose their minds and no longer know or remember who they are.
WHO AM I TO FUCKING COMPLAIN ABOUT WHAT I DON’T HAVE?!
No one. Absolutely fucking no one.
As I said before, I have no right whatsoever.
To further this endeavor, I’ve also started trying to change the way I say things.
Instead of saying, “I’m so jealous of your trip,” I’m trying to flip the script and say something more along the lines of, “Your trip looks amazing. You’ll have to tell me all about it so I can hopefully do it one day.”
I’m tired of being envious. It only takes away from my own satisfaction, which is why I’m learning to rephrase things without the words “envious” or “jealous”. I don’t want to be jealous of them. I want to celebrate their triumphs and celebrate my own. With all the opportunities and privileges I have in my life, the only life I should be jealous of is my own. Saying “I’m jealous” is subconsciously telling me I’m lacking something when the life i have is a privilege.
A beautiful fucking privilege.
And I need to treat it as such.
Anyways, perhaps this was all a bunch or garble and too ADD to process, but it’s been what I’ve been working on and I thought I’d share.
Today I challenge you, as I challenge myself, to do 3 things:
1. Write down at least 3 things your grateful for.
2. Write down 3 things that you love, or should love, about yourself. Take the things people have made you feel bad about and recognize that its actually something beautiful that should be celebrated.
3. And lastly—and slightly off topic—take something that you’ve felt like you’ve regretted doing or that’s happened in your life and realize that your entire life would be different if that didn’t occur. And that, by no means means it would be better! Every choice creates a chain reaction. One choice could be the difference between getting through the red light, and accidentally causing an accident running one. It could mean you not meeting the love of your life. Or having your beautiful children. Or seeing the world. Every single decision and event has lead to where you are right now in your life. And the things your grateful for… Well, those may not exist at all.
Kait
PS….this is probably filled with grammatical errors. Please note: IDGAF.
