Why You'll Always Come Up Short When You Compare Yourself to Others

Yesterday, Charlie Mae and I went to Whole Foods together. As we were picking out avocados in the produce section, an adorable mom in a pretty sundress and her two kids came wheeling by. Her kids were super cute (of course) and as a family, they looked pretty close to perfect on their Sunday afternoon shopping trip. 

A few minutes later, as we bagged our produce next to one another, the mom and I struck up a little conversation about our kids (the usual baby-related small talk).

At one point as we were chit-chatting I said, “Two kids, wow! Now that I have one kid I have no idea how anyone does it.” I expected a generic, "Oh, yeah, it's hard but so great!" and instead, her reply was brutally honest: “Yeah, it’s insanity at all times. We're always a mess. Everyone warned me but I truly had no idea how impossible it would be.”

Once she had opened up, I felt free to do the same, and we had a wonderful short conversation about being a mom and how crazy it is (and how no one can ever prepare you for how frazzled and loopy you’ll feel almost all the time). Just as we were finishing up our conversation she gave me a knowing look and said, “Any mom who makes it look like she has it all together doesn’t. Trust me. None of us do.” 

What I loved so much about this little interaction is that one minute before, I had seen her and her kids and assumed that they simply had it down. She told me that she had felt the same way about me when she saw me and my “calm, happy baby just relaxing in her carrier.” 

Ha! We’d both seen each other and made immediate assumptions that were totally incorrect.

I had no idea that in the aisle before, her kids had been throwing raspberries at one another (because, as she explained, opening the fruit and eating it as they shopped was the only way to make it through the store). And she had no idea that while my baby looked super relaxed, she was actually just really tired because she woke up 1.5 hours earlier than usual and then took a crazy short morning nap (leaving us all feeling exhausted and overwhelmed). 

Because when you see someone and make a snap judgment based on the small moment of their life that you witness, you’re almost ALWAYS wrong. You have no context, so how could you possibly be right? But isn’t it funny how we immediately and almost unconsciously compare ourselves to the people that we come across in our daily lives—and how often we find ourselves lacking in these totally uninformed, quick calculations?  

Yesterday’s interaction was such a great reminder of so many things—how quick we are to judge ourselves negatively, how quick we are to make assumptions about others, and my favorite lesson of all, one that I need to be reminded of on a daily basis, it seems—how we’re all in this together. 

And by “this” I don’t just mean motherhood. I mean life. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we’re all just muddling through doing the best we can and making a lot of mistakes along the way.

We all have to go to the grocery store, we all have to clip our toenails, we all have to buy more toilet paper when we run out, and we all have to clean up the gross stuff that collects in the kitchen sink drain thingy (unless you have a disposal, in which case, you actually don’t have to do this and I’m jealous!). We're all overwhelmed, sleep deprived, stressed, and sad at times. But we don't always talk about or project these feelings, and so no one knows what we're going through. 

No matter what we see in the store, on social media, or on TV, the little snippets of other people's lives that we observe in passing are just not the truth--or at least, not the whole truth. We don't know the entire story so when we compare ourselves to others we will always fall short.

But when we remember how we're all just doing our best and yes, sometimes falling short, but at other times, surprising ourselves by our ability to make it happen against all odds, we can connect with the beautiful mess of our everyday lives. 

I hope this little reminder is as helpful to you as it was to me yesterday.