Stop comparing myself to other people

I don’t know what’s changed, much less if I really “did” anything to accomplish this goal. But I definitely feel more confident and fascinated with my own plans and purposes than I used to. I don’t feel that it’s as necessary to measure their validity against the lives and achievements of others. There are still ways to assess my work but those markers seem to arise naturally out of the work.

I’ve been pondering a piece of new-agey grafitti that used to be scrawled at the end of my block which I think relates here and to probably many other contexts: “There is no way to happiness; happiness is the way.”

I attended my 25th High School Class Reunion last weekend and had a BLAST, far more fun than I EVER remember having during high school by the way. Attendance was sparse; of a graduating class of probably 420 less than 100 showed up and I suspect a large number were dates/sig-others. Of those who attended, I remembered probably 4 people initially but then I re-encountered many other folks who I only dimly recalled from way back who turned out to be rather neat people to talk with in the here and now. We were people existentially thrown into the same room (the best kind of room, one with a buffet and an open bar!) Comparisons were not even a category in my mind, oddly enough because it just seemed we all were so very different, each walking a different path though we started from a similar initial starting point. I felt really comfortable with myself.

Even as I select this goal, I’m telling myself that it’ll never happen, that I habitually if not OBSSESSIVELY compare myself to others, that I have no internal gauge of my own accomplishments if I DON’T track them against others. Here’s an indication of how silly this is: when I read something by an author I don’t know, I’ll see if can find out HOW OLD they were when they wrote the piece I’m reading. That way I can see if I’m “on track” to accomplish as much as that author.

This is just plain weird.

But then again, even deeper, I know that we each have our separate paths to walk, everyone’s got their own moccasins, judge not lest ye be judged, blah-blah-blah. I think the sum total is that I’m not pleased with where I am or who I am and comparison is just a technique to either beat myself up or help me settle for the nasty self-assessment that’s lurking deep beneath.

For whatever reason, I just gotta stop doing that.