Competition

Do you compete against someone else while you’re choosing how to live your life?

An ex, a friend, someone you admire, someone you despise?

With each choice before you, do you think, “How can I do this better than x?”

I was talking with a friend yesterday who freely admitted she’s competing with her ex’s new girlfriend. She had a crisis of self-worth when her love of three years abruptly left her for a younger woman (she’s only 30 herself!) and this has led to much soul-searching and hand-wringing over the last couple of months. You often read about how people can age years in a few weeks without truly understanding that its not just a metaphor, and seeing grief transform my friends face has indeed been an exercise in heartbreak. Grieving the loss of their shared plans for children, her ticking biological clock, their friends, their carefully and beautifully renovated house — and staying in an almost empty Ikea furnished apartment has really thrown her into crisis.

This friend is one of the most organized women I have ever met, and we schedule our catch-ups using Google calendar invites (I’m pretty forgetful, but she loves being able to look at a month of commitments at once and color code them). She decided to take a few months to recuperate in radio silence, but recently has thrown herself into her “new life” with gusto, volunteering with food trucks for a change from her incredibly corporate day job. She’s taking the same new ballet x pilates classes, seeing the same shows, and going to the same places for dinner that her ex’s new love has shared on social media. Not stalking in the present, but walking through someone else’s past.

During our competition discussion, I asked what was really driving her quest. At first, her answer was that she wanted to see what it was like living in a different world, with different hobbies, and a more carefree attitude. She still has the same stuffy job, but her hobbies are vastly different at present. I asked if she was sleeping through the night better, and if the tears were flowing less than before. She said she was doing better than ever, taking her decision cues from someone who didn’t even realise they were an influencer. It took some of the thought out of her choices, but also opened up her world. What stuck with me the most was this: in walking through someone else’s shoes she’d found more of herself than she’d ever expected.

While on a rational level neither of us recommends using your exes new love’s activities to fill your calender, it does go to show that expanding your comfort zone can have a happy knock-on effect. We had a good chat about what acceptable social boundaries are, and about harmful behaviours can seem normal in the heat of the moment. She no longer follows her ex, his love, or his best friend on social media, and we are going to try to get to all the things we pin on Facebook and use them for ideas instead of other people so we can create better memories and healthy habits.

It did get me thinking though, about comparisons. I’ve been observing my reactions to things this week as part of my ongoing therapy, and one of the things that I’ve noticed is that I see something beautiful on social media, and then feel jealous/insecure that my current trackpants in surgery recovery me isn’t measuring up to what’s on the screen. I’m judging not only someone else’s life, but my own — and there’s no self-compassion in jealousy. I’m going to be hyperaware of who I’m comparing myself to and why, and try and remind myself that I am kind to myself and my present is where I am, not in someone else’s possible future.

Have you compared yourself to something/one lately? How did you catch your thought process? Was it positive? ❤