How To Avoid The Comparison Trap
Comparison is the thief of joy, they say.
I’m in the process of publishing a book. Recently, a preliminary reviewer commented that one of the sample chapters I’d written was not as good as… and they rattled off four completed and published titles. I had to laugh. “Of course it’s not as good!,” I shouted between cackles. Those books were written by academics well into their careers. I’ve just finished my Ph.D.
But that’s not the only reason they’re better. All, the examples my reviewer gave are better because they’re finished products. It’s not fair to compare something just written to something that’s been edited multiple times, revised, and massaged. That’s like taking a bite out of a dirt-caked potato you just took out of the ground and saying it doesn’t taste like Tartiflette.
In fact, if you’re doing it right, your first shot at anything should be awful.
Everything starts somewhere.
You may be thinking “Oh no. Is she going to quote Anne Lamott?” Yes. Yes, I am.
In her infamous book on writing Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott offers an entire chapter called “Shitty First Drafts.” In it, she explains that “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.” She goes on to say that first drafts are the “downdraft” where you just get everything out of your head and down on paper. The second draft is the “updraft” where you “fix it up.” Lastly, the third draft is the “dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it’s loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy.”
Let’s say you’ve just written a first draft. The worst possible thing you can do to squash your spirit is to look at it and say something like, “Well, it’s not as good as The Color Purple.” Of course it’s not! The Color Purple wasn’t The Color Purple when it was first written. Neither was Moby Dick, and neither was Silent Spring or A Brief History of Time. Your first draft is the first draft of your first draft, not the final draft of anything.
It’s still just kale, not kale salad.
But you don’t even have to be a writer to understand the section above. You could be a newbie blogger, an electrical engineer, a Beautycounter sales rep, even an aspiring basketball player. The principle remains the same — your first attempts are yours, not someone else’s. The only comparison to make is to your actual self. Will you be better tomorrow than you were yesterday? Maybe. Maybe not. But if you keep going, will you be better in two months, six months? Yes. Most definitely.
There are lots of recipes for kale salad.
Did I submit a first draft of my sample chapter to that reviewer? No way. I wasn’t about to serve them straight-up kale; I gave them kale salad. Better said, I gave them my kale salad. They didn’t like it. And that’s okay! Some people just don’t like kale.
Could I have let that comment about my sample chapter bring me down? Yeah. But it didn’t because, in the buffet that is life, I know that some people will like what I have to offer and some people won’t. Just as I have preferences, so does everyone else. It doesn’t make them wrong; it doesn’t make them right.
The world will make conditions PERFECT for you to compare yourself to someone else. The upshot is, you can choose to see that for what it is — violence to your psyche and mental health, a crushing of your creativity.
A preference is just a preference, and in the immortal words of John Cusack’s character Rob Gordon in High Fidelity, “It’s not bullshit to state an opinion, Barry!” It just means they didn’t like my kale salad. Big whoop.
Love trying.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of comparison. Even if you’re not comparing yourself to someone else, there’s always the possibility of comparing yourself to your own supposed potential.
In his book Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life, psychoanalyst Adam Phillips writes about the “myth of our potential,” stating that it “can make our lives a perpetual falling-short, a continual and continuing loss, a sustained and sometimes sustaining rage… the myth of potential makes mourning and complaining feel like the most real thing we ever do, and makes of our frustration a secret life of grudges.”
This isn’t a new or modern phenomenon, it’s a tale as old as time. The life we aren’t living is somehow always better, richer, cooler, sexier, an unlived utopian existence. We become so sure that there’s something we’re missing out on if we could only be better.
The problem is that for some of us; the comparison cuts us down and keeps us from trying. Ultimately, the comparison game is one where no one wins. Even if we play it with our supposed imagined self, the Super Me, its flawless perfection masquerading as real life.
Philips argues, and I concur, that “we have to be attentive, in other words, to what we use fantasy to do.” Can I imagine myself with my book contract in hand? Yes! Is that a helpful motivator? Sure! That said, the day that I become overwhelmed and depressed comparing my ‘right now’ to some vision of me as a New York Times Best Seller, that fantasy is no longer helpful. It doesn’t serve me. It only kills my love of trying.
Don’t yuck your yum.
There’s a moment where we can choose, it’s brief and fleeting. It comes so fast sometimes that we can barely notice it, but it’s there. It’s the second you get to choose to either compare yourself, your work, your attempts, and tries, or love them.
In my house we have a saying, “the most interesting people are interested,” meaning that the most interesting people are curious, trying, exploring, learning, growing. They’re interested in the world and themselves. They’re interested in healing and growth, love and beauty, laughter, and all things delicious.
My attempts are interesting to me. They’re opportunities for me to learn and grow. Sure, sometimes it stings when the world doesn’t love them as much as I do, but that was never promised. Instead of beating myself up, I can choose to love my courage, my nerve, my resilience. I can put my kale salad out on that buffet. Someone will love it. I know I do.
