Compare and Contrast

We've all done it. No matter how many times you are told you should never compare yourself with others, we're all guilty of doing just that in some form or another. During the past few weeks, how I compare myself with others has really been brought to the forefront of my thoughts. It started with a comment that Cheryl Lant made during the Roundtable Discussion as part of the LDS Worldwide Leadership Training back in February. Normally, it would seem to me that such a comment would be a compliment--but seeing the situation from Sister Lant's perspective helped me to understand this whole idea in a different light.

It seems, in my imagination, that everyone around me lives a "perfect" life. Now, I do understand that no person is actually perfect and their lives aren't actually perfect--I definitely know that everyone makes mistakes or goes through hard times. So, by perfect, I mean more that my imagination leads me to believe that somehow the completely normal, human foibles of people around me are perceived to be much less significant than my own. (And, please know, I'm NOT saying this so people will counteract this opinion--I'm just sharing something I've thought about a lot in the past few weeks.) As a result, I have found a lot of self-inflicted pressure to be someone that only exists in my mind as a collaboration of selected good points I believe people around me possess.

Recently, however, a few experiences have reminded me that this ideal image is only that--an image, and an elusive one, at that. During the past few weeks, I have talked to several "perfect" people about things they feel unsure about or are struggling with in their own lives--and in most cases, these are the things that I feel pretty confident in at the moment. Does this mean that I think they need to step it up and get with the program? Not at all. Actually, I feel increased compassion toward them because I have certainly been in similar shoes more often than I would care to admit!

The lesson that appears so clearly at the forefront of my thoughts is that most people around me are plugging away one day at a time, just like me, doing the best they can on a daily basis. Going back to what Sister Lant said, we don't really know how much hard work goes into making something look so easy from the outside. What a person struggles with most may be the exact same thing that looks like a piece of cake to others.

Keeping all of this in mind, I have felt a great boost of confidence in my abilities over the past few weeks. I have found that having a closer-to-the-truth perspective of those around me, I worry less about what and where I think I should be and feel I have a greater ability to see myself as I truly am. I can honestly see where I have progressed, instead of constantly seeing where I don't quite live up to those imagined ideals.

Will I ever stop comparing myself to others? Probably not. But for once in my life, I'm finally OK with that!