How comparing yourself to others affects your relationships

This week’s article is on a subject I feel everyone can relate to: Comparing ourselves to other people and how it relates to our relationships with others. I’m sure you have experienced it before, when your friend gets blessed with something in life and you feel like they don’t deserve it. Or you wish that you were as successful as someone else.--You wish you had a boyfriend/girlfriend like all of the other people your age.--You want to feel loved by another person and have those passionate feelings for someone else. But comparing yourself to other people is bad because it limits you from reaching YOUR potential.

Here, let me explain:
Everyone is different, everyone is unique. No two people experience the exact same life or go through the same ups and downs. Our lives are carefully guided by the creator who desires for us to reach our potential and continue learning and growing. You will experience specific situations that only YOU could grow from, and they will happen at a time when you need to learn those lessons the most. You may be given trials or hurdles that you need to overcome, or you may be given barriers that prevent you from advancing at the present time. But these things are for your benefit. And they may be things that others never have to experience, but guess what? –That’s the beauty of this life: Your life is YOUR life.

The relationships in your life can be severely affected by your perceived need to be equal to others around you. After all, you fill your sphere with people who are supposedly at the same level as you are, right? Not necessarily. You fill your life with people who may share commonalities in personality, and have similar interests, but that doesn’t mean that they are on the same level as you are. We’re talking about maturity. Even as an adult, you will find that not all adults are on the same level of maturity as you are. Again, this goes back to life experiences.

We are shaped in life by the situations we are put into. Imagine your most challenging experiences in life and picture what your life would be like if you didn’t have to go through them, would you be the same as you are today?

So how does all of this relate to comparing ourselves to others?

When you compare yourself to other people and feel as though you need to be doing the same things as they are, having a boyfriend/girlfriend, traveling the world, moving away from home, buying a house, going to school, etc. You set yourself up to miss the important aspects of having these things in order to 'measure up' to your peers. There is an old saying that illuminates this principle: “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” –Having a boyfriend/girlfriend is good, but merely having one to say you have one misses the point. Traveling the world can be fun and grand, but if all you do is go to the location, take a few pictures to brag about it later, and then return home unchanged, you have missed the mark on why traveling is so exciting. Moving away from home can grant you a lot of freedom, but it also comes with responsibilities and if you are not prepared for them you can get into a lot of trouble. –I think I have made myself clear: Just because others are doing it does not mean it is right for you.





The opposite can be true as well: just because others are NOT doing it, does not mean that it is right for you. When others are postponing marriage or choosing to not attend additional schooling, etc. you still need to decide for yourself what is right for you.

But how does all of this relate to having good relationships???

Good relationships are not an end result. In other words, you can’t merely arrive at a good relationship one day. Having a good relationship is a constant process, it is the “journey”. In order to have a good relationship with someone, you both need to be heading in the right direction—you need to be working towards the same things. If you are heading in one direction, and the other person is heading in the other, then you really aren’t going anywhere together—you’re just brushing paths occasionally!
Being specific: When you are out to have a relationship with someone just so that you can say that you are dating someone, and they agree to date you thinking in their mind that the two of you could have something special going on, then you both aren’t heading in the same direction. He or she is heading towards the settling down stage and you are heading towards impressing/pleasing those around you who wonder why you are not dating anyone.

Remember that the purpose of dating is to find someone to marry. Just because your friends are getting married, or because they all have girlfriends and boyfriends, that does not mean that you are ready to do so. Maturity is crucial here.

Yes, you should be working towards getting married because it is as much a part of life as moving away from home is; but you should not get into a relationship just because other people are getting into them or merely because you want to have a girlfriend/boyfriend. Instead, you should get into a relationship because you have found someone who you can spend eternity with.

Marriage isn’t a destination, just like a relationship isn’t a destination; it is a part of your journey through life. You will need the assistance of another individual in order to continue progressing, growing, and reaching new levels in life.—No one is meant to go alone through life, you will need someone to help you meet specific challenges head-on and overcome trials. This isn’t something you can simply “obtain” or “reach”, it is a continual process. In order to have a good relationship, you will need to continually nourish that relationship. Just like a plant cannot continue to grow and will likely die without your support in feeding it water and sunlight, in order to have a good relationship you need to continually nourish the relationship because without nourishment, it will fade away and die.

So next time you see your friends and peers doing things that you wish you could be doing and you start to compare yourself to them wishing desperately that you could have the things that they have, or do the things they do, just remember: they are at a different level than you are (they may even be at a lower level and you have grown passed such things), and they are on a different path than you are—you’re heading where you need to go, and they are heading where they need to go.
If you make the effort to look for it, you will find that there are plenty of the opposite sex heading in exactly the same direction as you are (progression wise), you just might need to take a side-quest or an alternate route in your journey in order to compensate for them so that you can continue your journey together.