This is The Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 88: The Dangers Of Comparison.

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring, professional, and otherwise, to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m Sarah Werner, and I am guilty of comparing myself to other people. That’s right. You heard it here first. I have been known to compare myself to other people. And maybe you have, too. It’s sort of something that we do. I’m not sure we ever learned to do it, but I think that that behavior is modeled for us, and we sort of pick it up along the way. It can manifest early and often if you grew up with siblings, like I did, especially when it comes to snack time and you notice that your sibling has a larger cookie, or whatever it is you’re having for snacks, and yours is smaller. And you want the larger one because you’ve compared the size of your cookie to the size of theirs.

I remember very vividly an episode in … It must have been first or second grade. I remember there was another girl in my classroom who had really beautiful handwriting. I remember comparing my handwriting to hers and just feeling so envious. I wanted her handwriting.

Later, as I got older and continued my journey through the public school system, I remember comparing a lot of things, grades on tests, how we sounded when it was our turn to read out loud in class, how much stronger, and more agile, and athletic everyone else was than me in gym class. I remember comparing the projects I made in art class to everyone else’s. Where does this come from?

I always like to be super, super honest with you during this podcast because I think it’s helpful if you know the real me and the true me. So I’ll admit to you, I have a lot of ambition. I have a lot of drive. I have this little coach in my brain that always yells at me, “Sarah, you need to be the best.”

Now, some of this we’re taught. We’re taught, at least I was taught, to have high standards. My parents set expectations for me. I came away with the sense that if I have the capability to get really good grades that I should get really good grades.

Growing up at home, it was never relayed to me in a competitive sense, so it was never, “Oh, which of you children is going to get the best grades?” It was never told to us or relayed to us that way. But, there was an element of that at school, like, “Oh, who’s going to make the honor roll? Who’s going to make the dean’s list?” And there was just some little spark in my heart that told me it had to be me every time.

So, where does this come from? Is it a purely survival-related issue? Do we want to be the best? Do we want to have the best so that we can be the fittest for survival? Are we, whether explicitly or implicitly, told that we get attention, love, and affection if we’re the best? Do we get to feel proud? And when do we recognize that we are good at some things and not good at other things, and that it’s okay not to be good at everything?

As I’ve said before on this podcast, I’m not good at athletics. I’m not good at being physical, unless you need me to sit at a desk, and make a huge mess, and to take up space, and put stickers on things, and doodle in the margins. I’m good at that kind of physicality. But running, baseball, hand-eye coordination, kicking things a certain direction, whatever athletic activity, I’m not really great at it. And that’s always been a huge source of frustration to me because there’s a gulf between want and be. And into that gulf goes hard work, effort, natural talent, guidance, coaching, some kind of investment.

In a way, this shaped later on in my life what was important to me. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the things I was “good at” as a child are the things that are important to me now as an adult. And I haven’t mentioned it yet, but, yes, one of those things is writing, creating, making art. I want to make good things today. I want to make innovative things. I want to make things that make people feel. I want to make things that make a difference. And maybe you do, too.

But, I think that some of us, and I am pointing to myself right now as I say this, need to unlearn some of the things that we’ve learned along the way about what it means to be good at something, about what it means to have and to be, especially when it comes to what other people around us have and are.

So, let’s take a step back. Why do we compare ourselves with others? Why do we want the bigger half of the cookie? Why do we want our art project shown to the rest of the class as an example? As I mentioned earlier, it might be related to survival. If you get the larger half of the cookie … Well, I don’t know if you’d necessarily like, live longer because it’s full of sugar and things that are not super great for you, but it brings with it an element of favor, and belonging, and love, and protection, being recognized, and known, and seen, and loved. Those are huge building blocks for the human experience. Those are important to us. Those are things that we value.

To children especially, attention is currency. And I think we begin to look to other people at the attention they’re receiving, at what they’re producing, at the size of their half of the cookie so that we can gauge our place relative to the others, so that we can know, “Okay, here’s where I am in the pecking order. Here’s where I am in line,” because it’s all relative.

We compare ourselves to the people that we are surrounded with. Like I said, I worked really hard in school and made it a point to do very well and get on the Dean’s list, and the honor roll. I slacked off a little bit senior year, but I still got to be valedictorian, which was awesome. And I’m not saying this to brag. I’m saying this to tell you that when I went from high school to college, everything changed. There were so many people in college who were smarter, and more privileged, and better educated than I had been. And it was kind of a system shock to have my relative position change so quickly and to have my understanding of self change so quickly.

I was surrounded suddenly by kids who had had the opportunity to do debate in high school. They understood how to think in different ways than I had ever learned. I went from seeing my relative position as the top of the pile to even wondering if I was smart enough to be in college in the first place.

With the comparison, my whole identity changed, and it had nothing to do with me. I stayed the same. I was the same person. I was just in two very different circumstances surrounded by two different groups of people. And this is the beginning of why comparison can be so dangerous. When it begins to define who we are, when it begins to change our perceptions of our own identity, that’s when it gets dangerous.

So, is comparison ultimately inherently a bad thing? I don’t know. I don’t think that’s my place to say, to be honest. But, I think it can be used in good ways, and I think it can be used in very bad ways. So when we use comparison to judge ourselves against other people in order to feel superior, that’s probably not great. But, we’re doing it even now.

When I first hit 100 Twitter followers, I was ecstatic. I was like, “Oh my gosh. This is amazing,” until I looked at somebody else’s Twitter following and saw that they had 1,000. Suddenly, I was very unhappy with my 100 Twitter followers. It wasn’t enough. Then, I hit 1,000 Twitter followers and got really excited and felt I had made it. Hooray! Until I looked at somebody else who had 10,000 Twitter followers, and suddenly 1,000 was no longer enough. The comparison race will always be unwinnable because there will always be someone with more, so we need to figure out at which point we will be satisfied.

Something happened in a similar but more abstract way for me on Instagram. It wasn’t just comparing numbers to numbers. It was comparing what my life looked like to what other people’s lives looked like. I remember scrolling through Instagram and looking at people who were influencers, who were travelers, who were writers and comparing my situation to theirs.

Now, I think what we miss out on here is what’s true versus what is curated, what’s true versus what is portrayed as truth. I’m comparing where I am right now, sitting in front of my mic, talking to you, drinking a cup of coffee. I’m wearing a hoodie with cat hair on it, maybe a few stains. Don’t judge me. I’m comparing where I am right now to someone on Instagram who’s laying on a beach, looking fabulous, living their best life. And it looks beautiful and it looks amazing, but what’s their truth? How many hours did they take staging that picture? How much of an accurate reflection is it of the inner life they actually lead?

Theodore Roosevelt very famously said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” So whatever joy I feel in this situation here in my stained and cat-hair-covered hoodie, talking into this microphone over a cup of rapidly cooling coffee is whisked away when I think, “Oh, but I could be looking beautiful on a beach somewhere with no worries in ultimate happiness and bliss.” When really, what’s important to me is not laying on a beach looking pretty. What’s important to me is talking to you. So, how dare we let our joy be stolen away by comparison?

I’m not saying that laying on a beach, looking beautiful, and inspiring people is bad. It’s just not what I want for myself. Comparison can be dangerous because it can tell us that we want things that we don’t actually want, and it can take away the most important aspects of our lives.

I remember very, very early on in my writing career, I would read a book, and I would compare what I was writing to what I had read in the book. I remember I was working on a novel at the time. And again, this was all in my spare time. I was not getting paid to write novels. I was working at a bank at the time. But, I was working on my novel, and I would read a book that had just really beautiful descriptions in it. And I would look at my work, which was mostly dialogue because that’s what is the most fun for me to write and the way that I like to tell stories. But, I judged my work as inadequate because I didn’t have really lush, beautiful, page, after page, after page descriptions of what things looked like.

I compared my writing to this other author, and I came up with the conclusion that my writing was bad because I didn’t have all of these lush, beautiful, wordy descriptions of what the scenery and the people looked like. So what did I do? I forced in page after page of description that I didn’t really want to write because I thought I needed to do it because I had compared my writing to these other authors. And never once did I ask, “Is this the right fit for me?”

I love writing dialogue, and I have very little patience for writing descriptions. I like short, punchy descriptions that focus on one small detail, one element that the reader can latch on to. But, I was forcing myself to get these really bloated, long-winded descriptions into my writing because I thought I had to because I thought I was lacking it because I had compared my work to someone else’s.

Now, when we’re starting out as writers and for years and years, and maybe decades after that, we might not know what our style is. We might not know what’s right for us. So in a way, that comparison encouraged me to try something new, encouraged me to see if writing longer descriptions was a good fit. It turns out it wasn’t. But, that was something I had to learn. And it was something that for a very, very long time dragged down my writing.

Am I glad I did it? I don’t know. I wasted a lot of time thinking that I wasn’t good enough, trying to squeeze something into my style that was not my style, but I also learned that it’s not for me and I will never try to force myself to do that again. So maybe that’s a win.

Learning to write, learning to create, learning what our own style is, learning what our voice is, it’s not a straightforward path. We have to go down a lot of wrong paths in order to rule them out. And I had to ask myself, “What do I value about the writing process?” It was really painful to go in and write these really long descriptive passages when what I value about writing is how fun it is.

I have another example for you. I’ve been feeling good and satisfied in the creative work that I’m doing lately. I got to a place where I was feeling happy with my life. I was like, “Huh. This is good. This is what I’ve worked so hard for.” Then, I compared myself.

I have a friend who is a remarkable and brilliant writer who’s seven or eight years younger than I am. And nothing sucked away the joy of where I was in my writing career faster than realizing I’m seven or eight years behind this other person. I’m so late. The irony was completely lost on me when later that very same week a friend of mine who just turned 50 was lamenting, “It’s too late for me. I’m so far behind.” And I said, “No, you’re not. You’re exactly where you need to be.” I’m such a hypocrite sometimes.

Because that comparison gets us nowhere. I can’t go back in time seven or eight years. My friends can’t go forward or backward in time, at least not that I’m aware of. And I think that there’s something to be said about learning to be satisfied and content with where you are.

Now, of course, that contrasts sharply against my own ambition. I never want to be content with where I am. I always want to be learning, and improving, and pushing my own boundaries. And maybe you do, too. But, we can’t let comparison dictate what that means.

Like I said earlier, the comparison race is unwinnable because there will always be someone who has more, more privilege, more time, more energy, more money, more natural skill, more talent. And unless we want to consign ourselves to bitterness, we have to learn to be content with what we have, and make the most of what we have, and live our fullest, most creative lives in the best way that we can with what we have.

We’re not running this race against other people, against other writers and other creators. We’re running this race against all of the things that get in our way. That’s our true competition. Resistance, depression, writer’s block, that’s the real enemy.

This episode is called The Dangers of Comparison, and I have a little list here of six ways that comparison can be dangerous. I have been looking at this list this whole time I’ve been talking. As you know, this podcast is not scripted. It’s just me talking to you over a cup of coffee. I think I want to delineate these six items that I wrote down just so that I am really clear about what I think these dangers are. So for many of these, we will have already discussed sort of the implications that are contained and others we might not have.

Number one, comparison disrespects your own triumphs, your journey, and your adversities. You might do something that’s really hard for you, and you might feel a really good, and warm, and glowing sense of triumph because of it. But then you might look at somebody else. You might compare yourself to somebody else who does this every day or who’s used to doing it. And when you compare your triumph with their daily life, it sort of can rob you of that feeling of triumph.

For me, I have never … This is going to sound really stupid, I have never been able to run. I have a fused spine and some lung problems. And again, as you know, I am not super athletic in any way. And if I’m able to run for a few seconds, I feel exhilarated. I feel really proud of myself. But then, if I compare myself to my brother, Harrison, who actually runs marathons and is very accomplished.

Yeah, of course, I’m not going to feel good about running for a couple seconds. My brother runs for hours at a time. And I’m not saying that he’s bad or that I’m bad or anything like that. I’m just saying comparison can take away the joy from our own triumphs, our journey, and overcoming our own adversities.

Number two, comparison ignores what’s meaningful to you. There’s this expression about keeping up with the Joneses. So if your next door neighbors buy a new car, and you’re suddenly very jealous, and you want to look as good as they do, and so you buy a new car, but you’ve invested all this money into a car that you didn’t really need. And that if you hadn’t seen their new car, you wouldn’t have wanted it in the first place. It’s the same thing as the Instagram example I talked about earlier. What’s meaningful to me is not laying on a beach looking beautiful. What’s meaningful to me is having these conversations with you.

Number three, comparison invites dissatisfaction, jealousy, unhappiness, resentment, and anger. This one’s pretty self-explanatory. I can be perfectly content with what I have until I see something that someone else has. When I get my half of the cookie, I’m satisfied with it until I see that my sibling has a bigger half. And then all of a sudden I’m very unhappy with my cookie. And I may be a little resentful of my sibling who has a larger piece of the cookie. The same thing applies to me reading that book and thinking that my descriptions weren’t good enough or were lacking.

Number four, comparison warps our self-worth. This goes back to the example of me being the high school valedictorian and then going to college and feeling completely overwhelmed by how smart and well educated everyone else was. My self-worth went from feeling pretty okay about myself, all things considered, to, “Oh my gosh. I am not smart. I am out of my depth. I am not equal to everyone else here, and I can’t do this.” Comparison can really heavily warp our self-worth, especially when we tie our identity into the thing that we’re comparing.

Number five, comparison establishes goals based on assumption, lies, and appearance. I know you’ve seen this. You’ve been on social media. You’ve seen how people very carefully curate and portray their lives. They show the highlights. They show, hey, we just had a new baby. Hey, we just won an award. Hey, we just bought a new house. Hey, we just bought this new couch. Hey, I just published my third novel. But what they don’t show you is, hey, we’re going through a divorce. Hey, I got my 85th rejection letter. Hey, the bank is foreclosing on our house. We assume that the highlight reel of someone else’s life is all there is because that’s all they’re showing us, and we compare our present to their highlights, to what we see and what they have very carefully chosen to present.

Every once in a while, I will be on Twitter, Instagram, and I will see a writer post a rejection letter. And whenever I see that, I am like, “Yes, please keep doing that. Please normalize this. Please help show other writers that it’s not all easy for you, that everyone gets rejection.” I love to see that. I want to normalize normalcy. I want us to stop just showing our highlights and stop comparing our current situation against other people’s highlights.

All right. Finally, number six. Comparison can keep us back from breaking away from the herd and innovating. This one I haven’t really talked about yet. This one comes from looking around a room, comparing yourself to everyone else, seeing that, oh, okay. Yeah, you’re more or less sort of where everyone else is, accepting that and not pushing yourself beyond that, not thinking to push yourself beyond that.

The herd is a comfortable place to be. Looking, and feeling, and acting like everyone around you feels good. It feels normal. You don’t stand out. You don’t face rejection. You don’t take a risk. And that is just as dangerous as any of the other sorts of comparison because it causes you to settle, and stop pushing yourself, and stop having visions about what life could be.

I know because I was in this place for a long time. I looked around at my group of friends, and my coworkers, and my family, and I said, “Well, no one else is leaving their full-time job to pursue a creative career, so I must be okay. This must be good. This must be normal. This is what everyone else is doing, so this is what I should be doing.” This is one of the reasons it took me so long to strike out on my own and to do what was right for me, to start my own business and to write full-time. Nobody else was doing it, or at least nobody else who I was comparing myself to.

We need to ask ourselves, and then we need to be honest with ourselves about what it is we want from ourselves, from our careers, from our lives. I think it’s really, really easy for us to look around and compare ourselves to the people around us and figure out where we are in the pecking order and not think beyond that. But, we have to. If we are going to live our fullest and most creative lives, we need to know what we want, what’s meaningful to us, what is important to us, not what’s important to the person next to us, not what’s important to a friend, or a sibling, or a parent, or even a spouse. What do you want? What matters to you? What’s meaningful to you.

The comparison race is unwinnable, but that’s not the only race we’re running. We are each running our own race toward the thing or things that we want out of life. So what are we going to do to get there?

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Special thanks for this episode go out to Amanda King, Amanda L. Dickson, Julian Vincent Thornburgh, Laurie, Leslie Manson, Michael Beckwith, Regina Calabrese, Sean Locke, Susan Geiger, Tiffany Joyner, Leslie Duncan, Rebecca Werner, and Sarah Lauzon. Again, you are all so wonderful, and I am so eternally grateful to you for the gifts that you give this podcast and to your fellow writers. Thank you.

And with that, this has been episode number 88 of the Write Now podcast, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring, professional, and otherwise, to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m Sarah Werner, and I encourage you today to go forward and journal about what it is that you want.