What is comparison? Comparison can be defined by, “a consideration or estimate of the similarities or dissimilarities between two things or people.” As of right now nobody can fully explain why we do compare ourselves although professionals have narrowed it down to 2 types of comparison; upward and downward. Upward comparison is defined by comparing ourselves to people who have shown greater success than us. Downward comparison is when we tend to compare ourselves to people that have accomplished less than what we have. We’ve probably all compared ourselves to someone at some point in our lives. Sometimes we even can use it as a tool for reassurance to collect information from others. Sometimes when we were younger our parents would compare us to our friends, because they were more helpful or cooperative around our parents so they would sometimes say something like, “Why can’t you be as helpful as ***”. A little healthy competition can definitely be a good thing for trying to better yourself or use someone's successes to inspire you and motivate you to be a better person. However there are also many negative elements present in comparison. Especially with social media, we have normalized that especially for young girls, that they should look perfect at such young ages, such as 13 and older. For our generation, I think we have grown up with the normalization of comparison at such young ages of our lives where we didn’t have enough maturity to understand that social media is fake. So why would we compare ourselves to something unreal? This is the negative side of comparison. Many studies have shown that social comparison can guide you into feelings of guilt and sadness. Comparaison can vary in many different forms depending upon the type. Upward comparison has shown to lower our self esteem because if you always only compare yourself to people that you think are better than yourself, you are already going into the mindset that you are less than them, which is not true, because everyone has different factors that shape who they are. Downward comparison in research has been shown that it is proven as more effective as being positive for yourself, because when you compare yourself to someone who is “inferior” to you that can make you look/feel better. In my mind both these types are toxic to your mental health because it either causes you to look down on yourself, or causes you to look down on others around you. A really important thing about comparison that isn’t talked about enough is the fact that every single person is different so no person can look and act the exact same. For my own personal experience with comparison I’ve always found it to be a negative experience. Now that I am older and more mature I can understand the difference between “positive and negative” comparisons. For myself when I was younger I would find myself comparing myself to a few of my friends not even considering factors which affected the situation.
When comparing myself for instance when I was younger and when I used to do dance, I would compare myself a lot to the people around me thinking to myself, “wow, they’re so good, why can’t I be as good as them?”. This was a really bad way to look at my progress. Now that I’m older and I do rethink situations like that when I did compare myself I realize that I didn’t even consider why they were “better” than I was. Now I can reflect and can see they had more experience as they’ve been doing it since they were little and I joined much later than them, so it makes sense they are more experienced than myself. Brooke
10 Comments
alanna
1/31/2024 01:47:52 pm
Really well written and so true i think the way that you shared your own experiences really helped to show exactly what you meant! Well done!
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Gurleen
1/31/2024 01:48:08 pm
I think that is very relatable, I used to compare myself to other dancers all the time but now I am a lot more confident.
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Mateo
1/31/2024 01:49:59 pm
Brooke, this blog is so real. Recently I've been noticing this a lot in my life and try my best not only to stop comparing myself to others, but also to stop comparing others with each other. I think this is a super important topic and you totally hit the right areas of it!
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Gwen
1/31/2024 01:52:22 pm
I agree. Comparison is something that is usually negative but you can also work towards how you deal with it as you mature.
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Em
1/31/2024 01:53:24 pm
I am always comparing myself to others and I tottally get where you coming from. Parents really do love to compare you to friends or siblings. At the end of the day though its important to remember that you are the only person you need to worry about :)
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Max
1/31/2024 01:55:27 pm
I think this is very realistic and works in a lot of people's real life. I used to do a lot of downward comparison on myself whenever I would try something new, and this would stop me from actually pursuing the activity since I think I'm doing bad and I'm not as good as most people.
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Sarah
1/31/2024 01:57:43 pm
I totally relate to your blog, espeacially since I do dance as well. I had one ballet teaher that was super hard on all of us and she would literally compare to my group to other dancers at the studio basically saying like "the other group can pick up choreography way quicker than you guys" "why can't you guys be as good as them" . THings like that, which I agree can be very mentally damage and a toxic thing to have. Feeling never good enough can be super hard for someone.
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Sunsia
1/31/2024 02:03:52 pm
I think this could be tied back to our discussion about social media a few classes back, where younger and younger kids get access to social media where comparison is inevitable. I liked ur blog :)
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Brody
1/31/2024 02:09:56 pm
I find this very relatable as i compare myself to others very often although i try not to anymore. Great blog!
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Laetitia
1/31/2024 02:13:26 pm
I think your blog is really relatable. Everyone is comparing themselves to others at some point in their life. You just have to see that every person has a different life situation and everyone is unique in their own way. Great Blog!
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