Are you comparing yourself to others?

By Kerryn Vaughan

20th January 2022

“A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms”

I’m unsure of the original author of this quote, but it’s so true!

Without going down the whole rabbit hole of the flaws of the education system, the truth is it sets us up from such a young age to compete with others.

The whole system is about levels and scores.

While I have noticed recently that more and more parents (and teachers) are telling kids not to worry about their results as much as striving just to be happy, competing still does exist, particularly if you want to establish a professional career.

And I think it sucks!

I am going to pause right here and give a shout out to the incredible teachers out there who are working so hard with what they have to really have an impact and ignite authentic fires in kids souls. I take my hat off to you amazing humans, because it really is so much easier to just go with the flow even if you don’t agree - providing you can ignore your own moral compass. 

Thankfully these amazing teachers can’t ignore their moral compass, and sometimes it takes superhuman effort to keep your own spirit ignited when there is so much suppression of individuality around you.

These great teachers know that there are so many brilliant minds out there who think and learn in a different way to the outdated industrialised systems, that their brilliance is overlooked, and in most cases they have no choice but to conform to fit into a box that more often than not makes them unhappy.

And this is further perpetuated in a multitude of workplaces.

No doubt you’ve seen the above meme which has emerged as a visual for the Albert Einstein (not confirmed it was actually him) quote that says “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”.

I rest my case!

And we carry this scoring system well into our adult lives, constantly comparing, competing and measuring ourselves against others, most often with those who don’t even have similar qualities, strengths and talents as our own.

Why?

Because it has become so deeply entrenched in our psyche that either we don’t even know we’re doing it, and if we do know and don’t like that we are doing it, we can’t work out how to move beyond it.

But humour me for a moment, and ask yourself…

Is the doctor a better human than the hospital cleaner?

Is the high level executive any better than the receptionist?

Is the person who owns a mansion better than the homeless?

And the waitress who still smiles as she politely and patiently tolerates the rudeness of the uppity who think they are better than her. How can we possibly think she is less?

The truth is that nobody is better than the next person, and we are all born with magnificently unique gifts and talents, and no other person in the world possesses the exact same combination as us.

Surely that’s reason enough to stop the comparisons?

When we compare ourselves to others, we either feel terrible because we think we don’t measure up, or on the flip side, if we are believing ourselves to be better than the person we’re comparing ourselves to, then we are allowing ourselves to be exactly the type of person we are complaining about falling short to.

This is insanity!!!

Why would we want to make ourselves feel like crap by thinking somebody is better than us, and if we see ourselves as the better person, why do we feel so inadequate that we would want to belittle somebody else?

The solution?

Be the flower that blooms!

Stay in your own lane and focus on being the best version of you.

Forget the outdated system that taught us to compete, and be proud to stand strongly in the space that shines the stage light on your unique magnificence.

Somebody in the world needs you to shine. They need to see you being the beacon of light that will guide them through a rough patch.

Just be you, because everybody else is taken.

Kerryn Vaughan is the author of ‘Magnificent Kids!’ and ‘Get Off The Bench!’, founder of One Planet Classrooms, co-founder of Girls With Hammers, and host of Get Off The Bench Podcast.

Kerryn is also a DISC ADVANCED® accredited consultant.