Comparison: The Greatest Thief Of Joy

This quotation, from Theodore Roosevelt, argues that comparing your work, your life, or whatever else will only serve to make you unhappy. Why? This is because, in most cases, comparison is corrosive. It eats away at your ability to be content and confident. It is a poison that kills the love you have for yourself.

I am sure that if you think about it you have your own list of qualities you envy in others, and also a list of qualities people envy in you. The point is, we all have a unique makeup of skills, faults, blessings and infirmities that make us who we are.

It’s so easy to compare ourselves to others. When we do that, we simply do not measure up. We tend to compare our worst with another person’s best, and that makes us feel terrible. We feel we are too flat or too curvy, too little or too big, not enough or too much. And it doesn’t feel good.

Comparing ourselves to others simply removes focus from what we should be excited about within ourselves.

So don’t hold yourself up to some outside vague standard of greatness. Judge your work by your principles and leave comparison out of the equation.