Don’t compare yourself with anyone. The Last Judgment is not on a curve. God doesn’t compare us one to another. Each one of us stands according to who we are, what we have received, what we have been given, and what our vocation is.
Fr. Thomas Hopko
About a year ago I wrote a post titled “Comparing“. At the time I was reading a book called “Garden in the East: The Spiritual Life of the Body” written by Angela Doll Carlson. She had a section in the book on comparing and it was something I could really relate to. The post would have been perfect for this Maxim, had I thought ahead about it. You can read the post by following the link above.
I’ll just add…I touch on it briefly in the post but one of the greatest traps we fall into is actually the comparing that most of us do online. I know it is rampant among moms and most detrimental. In the days of just online blogging community it was most dangerous.
We tend to write about the best of our lives. We’d show pictures of the beautiful moments and tell the cute stories. There were many of us who needed to actually stop reading blogs where that was 100% of the case because it would give us feelings of failure. “How is that woman so together? How does she manage to homeschool her 8 kids, keep her house perfectly clean and run her little hobby farm with milk goats and all and still look so perfectly put together?”
The answer is, she didn’t. At least most likely, 98% of the time she didn’t.
But we would all fall into this trap of comparing ourselves to the online versions of our “friends”. We still do it I’m sure. I know I do. I’ve just gotten better at ignoring those feelings, knowing that it isn’t rue reality. And a lot of women are getting better at showing reality.
Thanks for sharing those massive piles of dirty laundry you trying to get through, my friend!
But friends…
Our aim is to kindle joy, not rob it.
There is a saying I’m sure you’ve heard, “Be kind for everyone is fighting a great battle.” I would like to change it up. “Be kind, don’t compare, for there are great battles in the day to day life of our friends we cannot see.”
Compare yourself only to Jesus, and strive to be more like him alone.
Happy Monday, my joys!
Kindler of Joy! 