Becoming Well With Liz Tafadzwa

Hello Becoming Well Community. Welcome back to another post. I am so glad to be back with a topic that has affected you and I at some point in our lives. Comparison is a problem that attacks every single human being and is no respecter of gender, race, socioeconomic status, etc.

As a twin, comparison has been a lifelong experience both in positive and negative ways. People are conditioned to look for the things that are the same and different between twins whether they are identical or fraternal. However, later on in life I came to the realization that everyone will be compared or compare themselves to others at some point in their lives.

Comparison starts from birth, is reinforced in our upbringing,emphasized in school systems, and is celebrated by society. We are socialized to compare ourselves and others to other people. It is almost as if we have lost our ability to embrace and enjoy the beauty of something without the urge to compare it to someone else. We can’t honor and celebrate a musician without comparing them to another to the point where society now feels in order to validate someone’s uniqueness, we first have to compare them. This will usually look like framing their preferred choice as the better option than the one being compared. Scroll through Twitter for 5 minutes and you will understand what I’m talking about. When a child is born, we immediately want to cast our prediction on who they look like, parents want to compare their kids to other people’s children, and in school, learners compare each other’s grades, amount of awards, or even in trivial things like who is the most popular and rated the highest by the opposite gender. When we get to college there is a comparison of degrees, how many clubs or sports one is involved in, and when we are fully thrust into the bigger world it is now who is doing better financially, who is married, having kids, where who lives, who has traveled the most and the list goes on.

Comparison is truly the thief of joy because it controls your perception of just about everything and when your perception is wrong, your thoughts are compromised and when your thoughts are warped your emotions are unregulated and it’s a cycle that literally creates a breeding ground for mental turmoil and emotional manipulation. We may start to become angry, defensive, dismissive, passive-aggressive, entitled, prideful, etc because the root of it all is comparison. I believe God had to put the “do not covet your neighbor” commandment in the 10 commandments because he knew how destructive coveting is in our lives. Here is what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10:12, “Oh don’t worry, we wouldn’t dare say that we are as wonderful as these men who tell you how important they are! But they are only comparing themselves as the standard of measurement, How ignorant!” Why is it ignorant? Because there is no one exactly like you in this world and ever will be so why compare? It is also foolish to compare yourself to other people because you didn’t create yourself. Only your creator has the right and proper perspective to compare you to other creations if ever there is a need for it because they know areas where it would be fair to compare. You and I dont have that capacity and only compare ourselves based on our self-imposed standards. You can only make an accurate comparison to things that have the same baseline. The good news is there is no one in this world who is going to have the exact same baseline as you. I’m a twin& I can list the number of things that are different about my twin sister and I as well as my younger brother. Psalm 139:14 says “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex. Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.” God made us all unique and complex so it’s pointless to compare yourself to others or allow others’ comparisons to lead you to a mental or emotional spiral.

Rick Warren, whom many of you now know because I mention him a lot in my posts said that “comparison is the root of envy and pride.” I absolutely agree with him because you will always find someone who is doing a little better than you and it makes you envious of them or someone who is not doing as well as you are and it tempts you to be prideful.

“Comparison is the root of envy and pride”

So how do you deal with comparison when the temptation comes knocking at your door because I am not sure if it is something that you can completely escape on this side of eternity. Even Scripture says you would have to leave this world to completely avoid temptation. What i do think you can control is how long it has a grip on you when it resurfaces.

 For starters, discovering who you really are is the first step to resisting the destructive influence of comparison. The most secure person I know to date is Jesus yet he was constantly compared by religious leaders, his own disciples, his family and the crowd. Not once did he succumb to pride or envy due to comparison because he knew who he was. Knowing who you are gives you the confidence to embrace and enjoy your uniqueness. You may know that yes the other person may be better at doing something than you or you can do it better but regardless of those realities you have a deeply held belief that your uniqueness is what makes you both significant and incomparable. 

A second way is to establish your identity in Christ. God made us to operate from a place of identity. That’s why when you don’t know your identity in him you find anything else that can be your identity because you feel incomplete or insecure without an identity. Unfortunately, when your identity is not rooted in Christ you also become easy prey for the devil in the area of comparison. I was a victim of this for many many years and if I can be honest I have to confront that temptation from time to time. It’s not as frequent and intense as it used to be, but it does not mean I’m 100% free from the comparison trap. Because my identity in Christ was not settled, i tried to find my identity in my accomplishments, exclusive experiences, or whatever gave me attention during those seasons of my life. As you can already tell, comparison is a temptation that I constantly dealt with and failed to overcome because my identity was not rooted in Christ. I’ve seen so many people struggle with the same issue by putting their identity in their relationship status, accent(especially Africans), amount of friends they have, involvement in clubs, local church or community activities, career, amount and location of vacations they take in a year, social media followers, amount of money in your bank account, school grades, work awards, etc. There is nothing inherently wrong with these things. The only problem is that they are temporary, unstable, and can be taken away from you& when you know that something can be taken away from you, you can never be completely secure. What happens if your GPA drops, you lose your relationship, face a life-altering crisis that drains all your money, or your social media account that had lots of followers is blocked and can never be regained and accessed? Will you still be okay with those changes and still feel like you are a whole person without those things? 

“When you know that something can be taken away from you, you can never be completely secure”

The third way to buffer comparison is to renew your mind. Yes, I said it. As I mentioned earlier we are conditioned to compare everyone, everything and ourselves from a tender age and to think that you can get free from this habit without a mindset shift is delusional. Romans 12:2 says “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” This verse lets us know that it is impossible to experience true transformation without changing the way you think.” Any form of comparison starts in your head before it moves to your heart and eventually actions. You have to unlearn the habit of needing to compare everyone, everything and yourself before you can can fully break free from the tight grip of comparison.

“It is impossible to experience true transformation without changing the way you think”

The final way to overcome comparison is to practice gratitude. I know this may sound so cliche because gratitude seems to be the antidote for many things, but it really does go to show how powerful it is. Comparison often attempts to have a grip on us when we start minimizing and overlook what we truly have. We start to feel inadequate, not enough, and of course feel sorry for ourselves. However, gratitude has the power to put things into perspective. It helps you regain the value that is still on the things you do have and can’t be taken away from you. It reminds you that you are far better than what your mind was telling you and if that is not the case it helps you at least appreciate what you do have.

Friend, I hope you now have a better understanding on where the comparison comes from how you can buffer it and in worst-case scenarios how to respond to it when tempted. I want you to know that you are not abnormal for struggling with comparison. We were all conditioned to always function and think from a place of comparison and when something is now default you tend to feel changing that default setting is abandoning yourself. Even when it feels like that and you feel guilty for changing your mindset during your unlearning process, know that you are not betraying your conditioning. If anything you are redeeming it so you can fully appreciate, celebrate, and value your own uniqueness as well as others.

Let me know in the comment section when was your first encounter with comparison, how it had a negative impact on you, and how you overcame that in the comment section down below. Be sure to also share this Blog Post and subscribe if you enjoyed today’s post.

Have a great rest of your week and I will see you on the next one!