Compare and Despair: How to Break Free from the Cycle and Stay Sane

You were feeling fine—until you saw their vacation photos. When you compare, you don’t just lose confidence—you lose connection, too. Let’s talk about how to break free from that cycle.

You’ve heard the phrase, compare and despair, right? Well today we’re gonna change that to remain in your lane so you can stay sane.

We’ve all done it. We’ve all looked at social media and seen the vacation someone else is taking and we think, “I want her life. She’s got it figured out.” We never imagine the years she saved and planned for that vacation. I mean, look! It just happened! She was living her life and then Bam! She’s scrambling around Machu Picchu and posting videos of lush green hills and highlight reels of mist and romance. She’s got it figured out and we’re getting life wrong.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to do. It’s also a joy-stealer. It’s a resentment-builder.

 

Comparison is the roadblock to intimacy

Compare your life to someone else’s—anyone else’s—and you put a giant roadblock in the way of any intimacy you could feel with your partner.

You will always see other’s people’s ease. And you will never fully understand their pain. Consequently, other people’s lives will always appear preferable to you. Easier. More joy-filled.

It’s easy to see other people’s joy and get envious. But we are never jealous of people’s pain. We can’t see the pain. Other people’s struggle is invisible to us. This is normal. We all do it.

Joy and pain are a package deal. It’s part of the human condition. But studies show we minimize other people’s struggle and romanticize their happiness.

The biggest way we fall into this trap? Comparing. Compare your life to someone else’s and you’re probably gonna despair.

 

Here are 5 reasons why comparing leads to despairing:

1. We envy the good parts of other people’s lives. We ignore the hard parts.
2. Because of the above precious little combo, we resent that they have it easier than we do.
3. Consequently, we feel less fortunate: no one has it as hard as we do. We feel put upon.
4. This attitude—life is unfair—affects what we’re able to experience, see, and hear. We see injustice. It’s not fair! We think.
5. The story we tell ourselves—it’s not fair—becomes our truth.

Not a great way to live, right?

 

Here are 5 reasons to remain in your own lane so you can stay sane:

1. When you stay in your own lane, you recognize the entirety of the emotional spectrum. You welcome the hard. You treasure the joy.
2. Because you know that denial is contagious, and you don’t want to miss any joy in your life, you welcome—instead of denying—everything that comes: the struggle and the pain as well as the joy.
3. Consequently, you feel integrated. You don’t try to skip over the hard, so you feel whole. And this allows you to see that no one gets a free pass when it comes to pain and struggle.
4. This attitude allows you to see everyone else struggles too, even in the midst of their joy. You develop empathy and compassion for everyone in your sphere. Which deepens the compassion you have for yourself.
5. The truth that love is everywhere and that love wants to open your heart is the story you see each day. You live each day with compassion and curiosity. You become a detective, finding joy and love hiding in the struggles and hardship you face each day.

Let’s take this list of five in pairs, juxtaposing a life of compare and despair to a life of stay in your lane so you remain sane.

Step 1: Tunnel vision or total vision

When you compare and despair, you envy the good and ignore the hard parts of other people’s lives. But when you stay in your own lane you recognize the entirety of the emotional spectrum, welcoming the hard and treasuring the love and joy for both yourself and everyone else.

Let’s examine why it’s so tempting to compare and despair. Who wouldn’t want a life free of struggle and maximized love and joy? This sounds a lot EASIER than feeling all the emotions. As a species, humans are naturally lazy, so we go for the ease.

When I was growing up this Burger King ad was playing: hold the pickle, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us. All we ask it that you let us serve it your way. Have it your way, at Burger King. Have it YOUR way.

This ad was so popular that now, 50 YEARS later, I can remember every line. We all want to have it our own way. Hold the pain and hold the struggle. Give me only one big bubble. Life of ease and never trouble. I want it that way.

Special orders for hamburgers might work. But life is a package deal. You deny the pain and you won’t be able to feel the joy either.

 

Step 2: Resentment or welcome

Because of your first choice, the next doors that open to you are either resentment—if you compare and despair—or welcome if you choose to remain in your lane to stay sane.

Because you chose denial when you compare and despair: How come those people get all the free joy and I have to sit over here and suffer? all that’s available to you is resentment because life doesn’t feel fair.

If however, you choose to welcome all emotion when you remain in your lane to stay sane, you will feel the huge gamut of emotions that are part of the human experience. Some of those emotions will suck. But some are wonderful feeling.

Step 2 is all about the emotions that come based on the choice you made in step one.

 

Step 3: Consequences—vicious or virtuous

This is where the consequences—step 3—begin to wreak havoc in your life. Yes, it’s harder initially to welcome all emotions, because that means you’re gonna feel things you don’t want to feel. And that totally sucks sometimes.

But what you keep at bay is the resentment that builds when you imagine others getting off easy. Resentment builds a wall between you and others. You get lonelier. Which makes you compare your loneliness to others joy with more ferocity.

It’s a vicious cycle.

The alternative—when you remain in your lane to stay sane—promotes a virtuous cycle.

When you don’t try to skip over the hard, you feel integrated. More whole. This wholeness allows you to see the pain and struggles other people face. Other people feel welcomed into your life because you’re not denying part of their experience—either with your words, gestures…or even your imagination.

People can feel what you imagine about them. Did you know that?

 

Step 3 is about owning the responsibility for your choice

If you compare and despair…well, you’re gonna skip right over other people’s pain and struggle, thus shrinking them and their existence in your imagination.

They will feel this shrinkage and back away from you. You will resent them for the unfairness you perceive.

But luckily you have another choice. You can welcome the wide variety of emotions into your heart. You can choose not to resist the pain and struggle that is real in everyday life. When you do this, not only do you have a fuller experience, you naturally imagine that other people struggle as well.

This imagination builds a door of possibility and openness between you and everyone else and leads us to step 4.

 

Step 4: Attitude—injustice or empathy

Step 4 is about the attitude you cultivate.

If you compare and despair the attitude you cultivate is one of injustice and separation. If you remain in your lane to stay sane, the attitude you cultivate is one of generosity, permission, acceptance, and empathy.

Are you beginning to see how big a choice you make when you’re simply scrolling through social media and you get envious of that colleague’s trip to the Bahamas?

 

Your attitude is like a filter for what you will get more of in life

If your attitude is that life is unfair…guess what you filter for as you look at the world? You see only unfairness. More evidence to justify why you are put upon. More reasons to resent others.

If your attitude is accepting, generous, and filled with empathy, you see every moment in life as a chance to learn, to grow, and to become the best version of yourself.

Attitude flavors your life. Be mindful of the attitude you cultivate.

 

Step 5: Your story = your truth

Step 5 is about the story you tell yourself. The story you tell yourself each day becomes your truth.

When you compare and despair, you create a cast of characters for your story who are shells of human existence. Your cast of characters—the ones you compare yourself to—don’t suffer. They have no pain nor do they struggle. Do you really want to read that story day after day, year after year?

Or do you want characters filling your stories that are filled with compassion and curiosity? Wouldn’t you rather write a story about a detective that finds joy hiding in the most unusual places? A detective so skilled at questioning what appears to be struggle that even the investigation is lovely?

I witness people’s stories every day. I see the prison some people build for themselves and I see the wild explorers that see every circumstance as another doorway to love and connection.

You are the ONLY one who gets to write your life story.

Will you feed your story comparisons? Then get hopped up on the soapbox of injustice and unfairness? Or will you choose to remain in your own lane so that your story stays sane?

Here are a couple questions you can ask yourself the next time you feel tempted to compare:

1. Why are you glad this person gets to have this wonderful thing? This question wakes up your generosity. Answering the question strengthens your generosity.
2. Next, imagine their invisible struggle they endured to arrive at this envy-worthy moment. This imagining wakes up your empathy. You tell yourself a bigger story about humanity and this person in particular. It doesn’t matter if the story is true or not. Because, let’s face it, the reductive story you were telling yourself before—where they don’t struggle at all—is a fictional story. So, why not make up a better one?