We all know that comparing ourselves to others comes with personal and professional risks, the main one being that as individuals we can develop a sense that we lack something that others have — and this is bad for our confidence, sense of dignity and self-respect. But despite this awareness, for many if not most of us there still may be fine, sometimes very fine lingering threads of comparison; hardly noticeable most days, perhaps, but nevertheless there. In subtle ways they may affect our sense of belonging and contribution, our faith in our own insights, the range of behaviors that reflect our self-confidence — losses that undermine the sense of the good life we deserve.
As a defense we compensate, often also in marginally noticeable ways. I might find myself becoming critical of someone onto whom I’ve projected whatever it is I believe I might lack — including when I can’t even seem to figure out what that thing is. I may well find myself falling into the trap of rationalizing obscure and subtlely painful comparisons as actually being a kind of motivation, leading to even more self-criticism. I see that so-and-so just got promoted (or is having a laugh with the boss) and I suddenly feel a tincture of guilt for not working harder or not looking for a better job. I feel bad in whispers while telling myself it’s good for me to be spurred forward in this way.
And yet, literally, spurs are those nasty little wheels with points, worn on the heel, the rowel driven into a horse’s flank to “teach” it to go forward at our command. In human terms, such teaching pain is frequently meant to drive some form of accomplishment, a mechanical demand that digs a little wound, a little hole into the human flesh of self-esteem. And pretty soon, like the horses, we only need to know the rowel is there to jump ahead.
Comparisons are all about background triggers to baseline emotions, including tough feelings like envy and anger, and it is also about how we learn to shut our emotions down. Comparisons bring us close to the submerged rocks in the path of our ship: not good enough, not deserving; flawed in some dark or ambiguous but always penetrating way.
Have you noticed that some people that struggle with self-esteem are addicted to comparison with others who seem to have something they do not — even, paradoxically when they do possess it but don’t think they do? They may call it modesty, but it’s not really that at all, and it leads to a sense of separation, of not belonging, of addiction to what mystic and philosopher Eckhart Tolle calls the “pain body” that we can’t help but feed with our sense of not living up to a potential or of repeatedly disappointing others. I sense that even if magically they were suddenly to overcome these difficult inner voices they’d worry about pride taking over, a harbored sense of superiority, better than others becoming just as isolating as worse than. It’s all trauma, maybe small t, not big T, but trauma nevertheless.
I lay in my bed as a college student in the late Sixties and before sleep comes to me I notice a phenomenon that is hard to describe. In a way it seems related to that extraordinary Wallace Stevens poem called “Of Mere Being” that begins:
"The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor...."
Read it at the link if you don’t know it. In the 19 year-old “decor” of my mind, something flashes darkly and draws me in. I would almost call it a hole (maybe a worm hole?) in that decor, if in fact there are words for it, which there are not. It is “beyond the last thought.” I do not realize at the time how important this phenomenon will be or the lasting meaning it conveys. It is the place where spring water bubbles out of the earth. It is the bubble in an infinite darkness from which I have my view of our trembling planet. It is the courage to be who I am, the trust I feel in my identity. The place I rest that is completely outside comparison with anyone or anything at all. Everything is rich, full, connected and there is peace.
I did not know it at the time; it was only an inkling of a discipline and vision toward which I still travel each day, faithful to the journey. I find few apt descriptions of the phenomenon, but Jiddu Krishnamurti comes closest. He says:
“The quality of that silence, that stillness is not felt by the brain; it is beyond the brain. The brain can conceive, formulate, or make a design for the future, but this stillness is beyond the range, beyond all imagination, beyond all desire. You are so still that your body becomes completely part of the earth, part of everything that is still.”
“And as the slight breeze came from the hills, stirring the leaves, this stillness, this extraordinary quality of silence, was not disturbed. The house was between the hills and the sea, overlooking the sea. and as you watched the sea, so very still, you really became part of everything. You were everything. You were the light and the beauty of love. Again, to say ‘you were a part of everything’ is also wrong: the word ‘you’ is not adequate because you really weren’t there. You didn’t exist. There was only the stillness, the beauty, the extraordinary sense of love.”
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