Understanding the Need to Compare

Few people negotiate life without occasionally looking over their shoulder at their parents, siblings, fellow classmates, coworkers, and even next-door neighbors to compare themselves with them in order to determine how they measure up.

“Comparisons are a natural human tendency and aren’t inherently bad,” according to the “Why Do We Compare Ourselves to Others” blog in Mind, Body, and Soul, February 27, 2021. “In fact, we do it all the time: we compare our current situation with where we came from, we compare our current self with our former self, we compare ourselves with others in our age group, and we compare our knowledge and abilities with others in our field.”

But there are both positive and negative aspects to using others as a mirror to reflect who or what you are.

On the positive side of the equation, comparisons can aid a person in establishing a baseline of where he is and where he would like to go in terms of education, career, wealth, accomplishments, and even personal growth. Without them, there may be no way to determine direction and the progress achieved along the way.

Comparisons can serve as motivations—that is, to enable a person to strive to attain or become more than what he presently has or is, despite the fact that the road to these goals may be paved with considerable work and sacrifice.

They can also constitute plateaus. If, after considerable time, a person is still unable to achieve his desired improvement or aspiration, he can pause to determine why. Does some deficiency or circumstance pose an unanticipated obstacle, for example? Does he need additional help? Does he need to amend his strategy? Or was his objective unrealistic based upon his capability and expertise to begin with?

More importantly, he may need to examine how he views those he wishes to emulate. If he considers them mentors and motivators, they represent stepping stones to his own improvement. If, on the other hand, he considers them the carbon copies he would like to become, he has set up unrealistic expectations, since he and they are individuals, not clones.

This can be considered the first of the negative aspects of comparison.

If a person looks to others to determine what he would like to do himself and he concludes that the task or goal is too difficult, it may serve as a deterrent to his own attempt to do so, as in, “I could never do that!”

And, if he tries anyway and fails, he may conclude that he is inadequate, lesser-than, and cannot measure up, which results in the opposite effect of the very comparison strategy.

“Comparisons can be a double-edge sword,” according to the “Why Do We Compare Ourselves to Others” blog (ibid). “They can be a powerful motivator, but sometimes they can be a strong deterrent from doing something…If you think about the people whom you consider better than you in some way, you can often fall into this trap.”

If a person’s originally intended goal leads to such a situation, he may need to redetermine his reasons for it. Does he, for instance, seek to replace feelings of inadequacy by emulating another and becoming his reflection? Or does he fruitlessly wish to replace his own emptiness with achievement and material gain?

He may also need to determine why he considers another the gold standard by whom he should measure himself.

Because no one can be a carbon copy of someone else, no one can completely compare himself to another. Instead, he can compare the idea, the aspiration, and the growth of what he would like to become, but cannot expect to be his clone. Self-worth is exactly that—the value that intrinsically exists within—and not the reflection from without. And, while others can serve as healthy mentors and motivators, all people are individuals with different life paths and purposes and have consequently been given the unique combination of skills and strengths to successfully follow and fulfill them.

Robert G. Waldvogel has earned the Interdisciplinary Certificate in Behavioral Health for Late Adolescence and the Emerging Adult and a Postgraduate Certificate in the Fundamentals of Cognitive Behavioral Treatment at Adelphi University’s School of Social Work. He has led Twelve-Step support groups on Long Island for the past decade, and created the Adult Child Recovery-through-Writing, and the Strengthening Our Spirituality Programs taught at the Thrive Recovery Community and Outreach Center in Westbury. He is a frequent contributor to Wisdom Magazine.