#31 - Nothing Compares to You
“Never compare your Google searches to everyone else's social media posts” - Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, "Everybody Lies"
Hello,
How often have you compared yourself recently to others? As for me, I stopped counting…
Did those comparisons make you happy or miserable? I guess, we all share a similar answer…
This newsletter is about comparison. Comparison to others is inevitable, and almost always flawed and even self-defeating. The good news is that comparison to others is NOT absolutely necessary either for building a sustainable and profitable business or for doing what’s worth accomplishing. And even if comparison is inevitable, we can channel it into a much healthier direction.
Comparing ourselves to others seems almost INEVITABLE, because...
Everything is Relative
We look to others to determine our own value.
"Humans rarely choose things in absolute terms. We don't have an internal value meter that tells us how much things are worth... Most people don't know what they want unless they see it in context (...)
Relativity helps us make decisions in life. But it can also make us downright miserable. Why? Because jealousy and envy spring from comparing our lot in life with that of others.” (Predictably Irrational)
Comparing ourselves to others is almost always FLAWED, because...
Everything is Sales
Everyone is playing the image game, even if it's subconscious. Since it's a crafted image, almost everything looks better from the outside. "The grass is always greener on the side that's fertilized with bullshit".
If you assume successful people you admire have guru-like powers, you're likely to say "I could never do that" instead of trying to play your odds.
"Everyone's human, everyone's flawed, nobody knows everything. Everyone's dealing with problems they don't advertise, at least until you get to know them well. Keep that in mind and you become more forgiving - to yourself and others." (Harder Than It Looks, Not As Fun As It Seems)
And yet, comparison is NOT ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for building a sustainable and profitable business
"The business world is obsessed with fighting and winning and dominating and destroying. This ethos turns business leaders into tiny Napoleons. It's not enough for them to merely put their dent in the universe. No, they have to fucking own the universe (...)
Sadly, it's not easy to escape the business tropes of war and conquest. Every media outlet has a template for describing rival companies as warring factions. Sex sells, wars sell, and business battles serve as financial-page porn (...)
Lots of companies are driven by comparison in general. Not just whether they're first, second, or third in their industry, but how they stack up feature for feature with their closest competitors. Who's getting which awards? Who's raising more money? Who's getting all the press?
Mark Twain nailed it: "Comparison is the death of joy." We are with Mark.
We don't compare. What others do has no bearings on what we're able to do, what we want to do, or what we choose to do. There's no chase at Basecamp, no rabbit to pursue. Just a deep satisfaction with doing our very best work as measured by our happiness and our customers' purchases”. (It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work )
If we cannot escape comparison, we can at least try to CHANNEL IT INTO A HEALTHIER DIRECTION:
“What is the comparison for?
Is your job to be the most at a thing?
Just because a thing can be noticed, or compared, or fretted over doesn't mean it's important, or even relevant.
Better, I think, to decide what's important, what needs to change, what's worth accomplishing. And then ignore all comparisons that don't relate. The most important comparison, in fact, is comparing your work to what you're capable of.
Sure, compare. But compare the things that matter to the journey you're on. The rest is noise”.(Compared to...)
Stay healthy and compare wisely,
Arina
Illustration: Tanaka Tatsuya's Instagram