Here’s one of the most dangerous things you can do…..

A few years ago, I attended a talk given by two highly respected spiritual teachers. Someone asked them to talk about the most harmful thing a person walking the spiritual path can do. Their answer was surprising; yet, it wasn’t.

They said the most “dangerous” (their word) thing a person can do is compare themselves to other people. Someone else will always be ahead of you and comparing yourself to them could be discouraging. There will always be people behind you. Comparing yourself to them can make you prideful or careless. The only person to compare yourself to is yourself – have you grown since this time last year? Are you committed to your spiritual processes?

Lately, I realize how much this applies to growing older and wiser. It’s easy to see people around us who are doing better physically, emotionally, or monetarily and then feel bad about ourselves. We might even feel some anger toward others, thinking they have had some sort of advantage we haven’t.

Yes, this can happen at any stage of life and often does. It’s a little more daunting, however, when we’re in our older years and feel like we have fewer options than when we were 20 and felt bad because friends had nicer hair than we did.

I caught myself making comparisons to my mother-in-law. She’s seven years older than I am and walks better than I do. Sometimes I find myself feeling bad, like I am a lesser person, because I have mobility issues and she doesn’t. I remind myself that I had a bad fall that resulted in my mobility issues. She hasn’t had a fall.

This comes down to our recognizing we’re all different. We don’t have the same life experience, the same genetic make-up, or the same life paths. One of the signs of positive aging is to love and respect ourselves for how we are without comparing ourselves to others.

Sometimes it might be tempting to compare ourselves to someone else in such a way that we puff up, noting how we’re better at something than the other person is. Other times, we shrink because someone else runs circles around us in some way.

If you discover yourself engaging in the comparison game, here’s an idea. Pay more attention to your own life and what you’re doing. When we stay focused on our path, doing the best we can with our talents and abilities, we’re less likely to be tempted to compare ourselves to someone else and their path. Focusing in this way doesn’t mean we stop caring for others or helping as appropriate. It simply means we release ourselves from the need to compare our life with anyone else’s. We also learn that everyone has their own share of challenges, even those who we see as far advanced to ourselves. Remember: someone else sees you as more advanced than they are.

We learned this in elementary classes: keep our eyes on our own paper and not that of our neighbors!

Growing older and wiser by the second,

Krysta