Is the Grass Really Greener?

Sitting on the step outside the auditorium, my eyes wander away from my children who are playing together with rocks. Who needs toys when there are rocks? My gaze happens upon the shiny silver beauty that is parked nearby to our car. Its tinted windows conceal the identity of the happy family contained therein, but surely I know who is in there. Despite the fact that just past this lovely distraction I can see our perfectly beautiful, functional, deluxe vehicle, despair descends upon my soul. The rose-colored glasses with which I generally view all of life slide down the bridge of my nose and drop to the ground, shattered. In their place? Seedy green contact lenses cover my eyes, my vision, my attitude, my heart. Jealousy, envy, and a spirit of disunity overwhelm me. “Why can’t I have what they have?” I whine in my private, inner thoughts. “Their stuff is so much better than mine,” I lament in a moment of top-notch victim mentality. “Why them and not me?”

Surfing through the pages of Facebook, I glance at all the smiling children’s faces. Children at recitals, sports events, awards banquets, parties, and in pools, on vacation, at amusement parks and making statements that reflect excellent parenting and superior intellect. As my finger continues clicking the mouse pad on my beloved pink-covered MacBook Pro, my mood deteriorates. “Why are their children so much better than mine?” I think as the whining returns. “Yes, my children are normal and healthy, but why can’t they be advanced and beautiful like all these others?” I wonder in an ever-depressing and destructive downward spiral of thought. I begin to let my mind wander, thinking of ways I can make my children be like everyone else’s – just as smart, just as disciplined, just as gorgeous, just as talented. “What is wrong with me and my parenting skills? Why can’t I be like them?”

Glancing at my over-stuffed in-box, I scan through the messages wondering if anything ‘significant’ has come in today. Editing, proofreading, scheduling, filing, data entry… all ‘secretarial’ work. Nothing of ‘significance’ today, I note, dejectedly. I glance through one email on which I am CC-ed. It is giving a fantastic assignment to someone else. “I would be perfect for this job,” I exclaim. “Why does this other person always get the good work?” I ask longingly. “Why do they get to travel while I remain at home?” Again the whining returns. I look back over my life and my experiences and allow myself to indulge in self-pity. Everyone else has realized their professional dreams. Everyone else makes a whack of money and can buy the things they want. Everyone else… My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of an incoming “You’ve Got Mail” – it’s another request for information; something simple which can be done without any thought. “Why are others worth so much more than me? Why can’t I be successful and a celebrity like everyone else?”

This brief peek into the deep darkness of my inner mind is, I hope, not unfamiliar to you. I, like so many others, in this age and in ages gone by, get lured into the trap of comparing myself to others. It is indeed a trap. It is bondage. Beyond the expected amounts of jealousy that come naturally with wanting that which others have, this Disease of Comparison is a cycle that breeds hopelessness and despair, disunity and a lack of love. Something so destructive and yet it seems we cannot help ourselves. We all do it. We all compare ourselves to others. In fact, the world has conditioned us to compare ourselves to others.

From an early age, our parents taught us to ‘sit nicely’ like those other children. Our teachers urged us to study diligently so we could match the scores of those at the top of the class. Our coaches asked us to put in hours of practice so our athletic performance could match those of our teammates and be better than those of our rivals. Our pastors counseled us to live a life worthy of the Lord… you know, a life like that of the apostle Paul or like Mary or like Moses or David or Simon Peter or John. Our children ask us to make cookies as often as their friend’s mother. Our grandparents ask us to remember the days of old and emulate the simplicity that is there.

And as if that wasn’t enough, television, newspapers, magazines, the internet, radio, advertisements, movies, and books all tell us that we are not good enough. We must compare ourselves to others and then be like them or exceed their levels of greatness in order to be significant. Oprah wants us to Live Our Best Life – but only if it compares accordingly to that which she deems is important. American Idol, The Apprentice, Survivor and The Bachelor entice us by showing us that ‘normal’ people can be ‘successful’, glamorous and wealthy and so we should not be content with the mundane of our everyday life. ‘Glamour’, ‘InStyle’, ‘Shape’, and ‘People’ nearly force us to compare our own naturally flawed skin complexion with that of the model they have airbrushed into perfection. “Twilight”, “Enchanted”, “27 Dresses” and even “The Princess Bride”, deceive us into thinking that romantic love is forever and perfect, with men who care for a woman’s every need perfectly without ever needing to be nudged. All of this media influence leaves us comparing ourselves not simply to others, but to that which is not reality. Comparison is truly a disease of the heart, the mind and the soul.

If it were only comparison of material possessions and financial well-being, I think we could all certainly attend one or two life-changing seminars and we would be able to cope with this ailment and likely overcome it. However, it’s more than just the comparison of material things.

We compare our bodies. We compare our weight. We compare our beauty. We compare our hair. We compare our shoe size, our dress size, our belt size.

We compare our intellect. We compare our relative smartness. We compare our productivity. We compare our ability to organize, to administrate, to cast a vision, to earn money.

We compare our family background. We compare from which side of the tracks we have come. We compare our legacy, our future, our potential for greatness innately built in because of that from which we are a descendant.

We compare our emotional stability. We compare our level of maturity. We compare our ability to handle stress and our level-headedness in the face of a crisis.

We compare our spirituality. We compare the number of hours we read our Bible, the number of hours we pray, the number of people to whom we proclaim the Good News.

We compare our talents, our gifts, our abilities…

Is there no end?

It is in the state of overwhelming despair as I have reflected upon this critical issue of comparing one to another that I have been longing to write about this topic – both for my own processing, but also to help anyone else who has ever thought “The grass sure is greener on the other side…”

I hope that you’ll join me in this multi-part journey as together we learn to focus on ourselves and on God’s best for our lives… and to take our eyes off of others and trying to claim, emulate and copy that which is not ours.

More to come…

~lk