How come I praise God’s magnificent artwork in the sky’s clouds, sunsets, and sunrises, yet look in the mirror and am disappointed, as if God didn’t make me too? How come I marvel at God’s wonderful creations, but fail to see the beauty in my own reflection?
Why do we, as a society, constantly set standards to be aligned with and compared to everyone else? I think we oftentimes don’t see social comparison as the monster it really is because it’s so ingrained in our culture. Where do we get our ideas of beauty? How do we decide what success looks like? And just how do we compliment each other? Probably something like, “I love your outfit! I wish I could pull that off…” Why is it that we feel the need to constantly measure ourselves in comparison to someone else? Since when did loving ourselves become such a chore?!
Remember, someone else’s successes are not your failures.
We often lose sight of the truthfulness of that statement. It seems so obvious, but yet when we see others out achieving really great things, we usually compare our lives and “shortcomings” to their successes – especially with the prevalent use of social media. But there’s a few things to keep in mind.
First of all, people don’t typically advertise their failures as much as their successes, so what you see online is not always an accurate representation of a person’s life. But secondly, we are all on different journeys. None of us are easily comparable to others. And isn’t that great news?!
Another thing to pay attention to is our mindset. What we look for, we tend to see more of. When we look for flaws, we are bound to see more flaws, but when we look for gratitude, we are bound to find more of it! So when we look to love, we are bound to give ourselves (and others) more of it! You see, we all have that choice, the choice of how to think about our experiences in life. If we choose to live a life of thankfulness, we will learn to focus on what we have, not on what we don’t have, and I think that is the mindset that changes it all.
So today, let’s allow ourselves to focus on our strengths, not our shortcomings. Think about the positives of our situation, not the negatives. Notice the abundance, not the scarcity. Live life in gratitude and love, not jealousy and contempt. ‘Cause remember,
God made us too.
~Life With Kails~ 