From Comparison to Self-Love: Reclaiming Your Unique Essence

-Dubori Nayantora

Intern, May- July 2024

We must have looked at other human beings and wondered how flawless they are as a person, be it us adoring their physical features or their intellect. We must have longed to have the qualities they possessed and dreamt of being them at least for a while. During that process, we end up setting subconscious expectations that might not truly align with what we truly are as a person, but we still crave to meet those expectations because of the supposed thrill, attention, and love we will get from ourselves, that must have been absent for a while. We crave to fill that absence to achieve these unrealistic expectations, forgetting the unique essence we bring into our human existence.

When we fail to meet these expectations, we throw ourselves under the harshest scrutiny and project the utmost hate on our self-worth and individuality. We forget the evidence that our reality brings in, that we are not the people we are comparing ourselves with. The experiences we hold and the beauty we bring into this world cannot be replicated by another human being and will always remain unparalleled. Nevertheless, such reality gets cross-verified again and again because we start losing trust and confidence in our abilities to restore the exceptional gifts we have to offer ourselves. Our actuality gets blurred and we dwell deeper into what the unrealistic expectations feed us.

Why does our mind compare us with others?

Comparing ourselves with others is a common human experience to understand ourselves better in the world we live in and is not inherently bad in all its forms. When we compare ourselves with our past self, our prior performance, our position in terms of priorities, and our circle, in such cases, comparisons encourage us to do better, identify what we desire, and appreciate our efforts concerning how long we have come ahead, but the other side of comparison can be quite demeaning to our mental health. In cases when we compare our abilities with those of others, get us demotivated, and make us doubt our strengths, we end up sabotaging the best of the things we deserve and undermining our reality. Choosing the better side of the coin that comparison offers is the biggest challenge yet the most rewarding one when we take advantage of its offers.

Do we deserve better?

It is painful to be in a position where you are sinking into a realization that you might not be good enough after all, even though it is a false conclusion. It is a battle to fight against the dark side of comparison, but at the end of the battle, we need to evaluate that our journey is our own and it can never be taken away from us. If we have flaws, we have passion, hopes, and courage too, and all of it together makes us one whole human with the ability to be the best version of ourselves, without having to put down our sense of worth. If an expectation is making you disrespect yourself, then that expectation is not meant to guide you in this journey and certainly is not healthy for you. We all deserve to feel better and loved.

What can we do to stop such comparisons?

• Be aware of the times when you subconsciously engage in comparing yourself with others and make yourself understand now that you are more than these expectations.

• It's okay to compare yourself and feel bad about it. Give yourself a break to acknowledge such thoughts.

• Your strengths are unique and cannot be reproduced by another person. Your world is your own and no other human being can take that away from you.

• Learn to live with your flaws and understand that the importance of your strengths would not exist without them.

• Try to fall in love with your journey because you deserve to have the absolute best.

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