Is Comparison Really the Thief of Contentment?

How many times have you heard that comparison will rob you of your joy? It’s easy to see how much others have and, consequently, become dissatisfied with your lot in life. In one sense, this observation is true. Our hyper-consumerized, FaceBook-fueled world bombards us with images of how successful, wealthy, good-looking, and popular everyone else seems to be. The problem, as Andy Stanley says, is that we compare our seemingly mundane lives to other people’s “highlight reels.” Everyone else’s life is amazing. Mine is not. Makes me feel like a schlub. 

Before the FaceBook world, we and many of our friends typically sent out Christmas newsletters, highlighting our families’ spectacular years. God blessed us with a couple of great kids, but there were a few years – especially the high school ones – that weren’t always awesome. Do you think we ever admitted that? Not on your life. All we spotlighted were our victories and successes. Eventually, I learned to read between the lines of others’ letters and figured out their lives maybe weren’t entirely unblemished either.

So, yes, we have been guilty of feeding into the “look how great our life is” trend. And we probably helped others’ contentment slip a bit by only presenting our “perfect lives.”

However, although it’s true that comparison can rob you of your contentment, comparison can have the opposite effect. Let me explain.

We tend to become jealous when we look up the “comparison scale.” But what happens when we look the other way, toward those less unfortunate than we are?

People on overseas mission trips are often shocked by being smacked in the face by abject poverty. In Manila, I saw entire families living in tiny cardboard and plywood shanties with raw sewage running past their “houses.” When our family went on a mission trip to Cuba when the kids were in high school, we worked with a church of about 200 members. I was stunned to realize that our family of four owned more vehicles – four cars, to be exact – than did all the members of that church combined.

I have friends from high school who have already suffered strokes, had hip replacements, endured cancer, and even died. I know people whose kids are hopelessly drug-addicted, mentally ill, or totally dysfunctional. And I even know people with kids who have committed suicide. What do I have to complain about?

When our daughter Stephanie was in high school, she took a prescription drug that resulted in second degree burns over two-thirds of her body. She spent 19 days in an ICU and nearly died three times. Nevertheless, as we saw other families in the ICU, we recognized how blessed we were. One young girl had lost a large part of her face to cancer. A one-year-old had rolled off a couch and was paralyzed for life. And some families never took their children home at all. When you look at people with circumstances far worse than yours, it’s easier to recognize how truly blessed you are.

My best friend Billy Burke describes himself as a “glass ¾ full person.” I love that! Of course, that’s technically illogical. The “glass ½ full, ½ empty” saying reveals whether your natural bent is toward the positive or the negative. What Billy is saying is that even when he sees a glass that’s only 50% full, his mental filter is such that he “reinterprets” the glass’s condition as even more positive than it really is. Nothing is robbing his joy!

So, even though comparison can steal your joy, having a mindset like Billy’s and looking “downward” on the comparison scale will actually remind you how truly blessed you are.