I always found people to be hypocrtical about this. Very often if you're going through a bad time, people are happy to tell you to think about those who are even worse off to make yourself feel better. But when its the other way around, and you compare in a way that helps you see your life even worse, they tell you comparing is stupid. Cant have it both ways.
That’s how I feel too but I’ve never voiced this out to someone who’s given me this advice because they’d probably say I’m overcomplicating things. It’s just like, can’t I just feel happy/sad about a situation w/o having to compare whether it’s valid or not against another person?
that's usually because they aren't thinking before they respond, and are only giving you canned responses they heard online to try to make you feel better. These people probably aren't trying to be malicious, they usually just can't think for themselves. Not excusing it, just doing my best to explain it so it hurts less.
Suffering is relative, we also use that excuse to not have empathy for people that have generally have good lives like they aren't allowed to suffer because they have it better than most, I fell for that part a lot it fills you with resentment and victim mentality.
I think we both have the same idea here. Like others said, it's a canned response. So much so, even I know better and STILL say "you can't compare yourself to others." For some ppl it works, but for most, especially those with mental health issues, it's just not that easy. Personally my comparison is very impulsive. Don't even realize I'm comparing myself until it's too late.
What really freed me of comparisons is that i found out no comparison is fair, with no exceptions. You can have a twin with whom you spend your every second and be in vastly different positions in life. The reason is, there are so many factors which people get shaped by. It doesn't mean that it's fair to compare yourself with your classmates, siblings or basically any person that you think you are in the same league just because you are being shaped by the same environment(you might be in the same school), same people(same social circle) and other stuff(maybe the same social background?). You are not in the same league with any person on this planet. This doesn't mean that you are below or above anybody, it means that everybody is being shaped by endless number of different variables that it will NEVER be fair to compare two people who seem to be in the "same league." edit: you can read some sociological theories if you're interested in this style of thinking.
I think comparisons are fine, as long as we don't try to justify our negative emotions with them. Example: if I like vtubers, I could think:"talking to a chat and playing games looks so fun! If they can, I can also!" That is a comparison but a helpful one, since you are going to act. Now, if you start to feel bad screaming on a vacuum on yt and think"bleh, those big vtubers are so much better than me and hog all attention I could get" now you are justifying your negative emotions. Now you will not do anything and will be sad about it.
Yeah I think what we all eventually realise is that comparing yourself to other people, and putting them on an unnecessarily high pedestal is just an impractical thought process...
@@bapbirb personally for me, I feel that by putting them on a pedestal I’m hiding from my own faults and victories. It’s like a shortcut, why ponder my value when I can just say everyone has more than me.
@@DankMcDANK1738 Yeah. I think alot of us struggle with self protective/preserving thought process that actually helps us to minimize stress, but in the long run they are destructive to our own lives. I have really bad avoidant tendencies and oh my.. the excuses and conclusions that come up in my head are very cunning.. but also foolish.😭
What really helps with this is having people with different backgrounds as your friends. If you start comparing them, you'll start comparing yourself along those lines as well. I have a lot of friends that do manual labour, i myself was at college for a few years and had some friends there. For one group, i am the smart, weak guy that can't do shit with his hands, for the other i'm the pragmatic that knows his way around tools. now i could just compare myself with these groups and see that one group is far more strong and dextrous than me, while the other seems to have fewer issues studying. or i could compare the groups with each other and then make an assessment of myself, it's nearly impossible to really come out thinking i'm REALLY bad at anything. or, if i am that bad at it, i know someone who can help me (i have to learn to ask for help, but that's another issue...). And no, i will not call anyone stupid here, the college kids might be more intelligent, but wisdom is very evenly distributed. Also, play TTRPGs, everyone has their use at some point. And even if someone might be "more useful" in most cases, there's always a moment for someone to shine. Once you see that, you can compare everyone (including yourself) with a much better lens. Even though you might not see a use for someone right now, you probably just don't know them well enough.
Don't compare yourself to others - that's an easy thing to say but life trains you to compare yourself. Think about it, you are being rated, compared to others nearly anywhere you go (at school, at work, when applying for work, when dating).
i think it’s more into comparing oneself in personal occasions, like during a family dinner or a casual conversation. comparison as a form of creating competition is fine if not necessary; but comparison as a form of boasting ego or criticism (is it criticism? idk) is a big NO
Possibly, some things I’ve discovered help me is to actively step into the negative comparisons. I don’t just stop comparing myself. I have to practice the thought pattern of challenging those comparisons. I say to myself “that’s not true” or “I’m not going to let these comparisons control me”
I feel like it's how society functions too because if people never compared themselves they might also not conform or keep themselves in check to be the good sheeple they should be 🐑
“We are all individually valuable, once you start loving yourself and accepting how wonderful you are, just you, you wont compare yourself with others negatively. You’ll acknowledge that everyone else's wonderfulness doesn’t take away from your wonderfulness.”
One thing I have noticed about comparison is that I am very verbose about my problems in life and I will compare myself to people who put out a good image and keep their problems secret. It always gets me; I always forget that the other person is likely to have problems that compare to mine, but since they don't talk publicly about it, I end up feeling like I'm inferior because I do have problems
I have that problem in reverse. :’) I don’t talk about my problems, so when I see people who do, I think about how they’re getting attention just because they decided to “whine about their problems”. I don’t think those are good thoughts but they’re there.
Very timely. My mother just compared me to several people coming over for the holiays and how far I'm behind in life professionally compared to them.... tanking my mental health and reinforcing my core feeling of being a failuire. We're bad enough critics of ourselves but some parent's also don't help in terms of comparison.
I had an experience with a cousin and our respective parents For them the other kid was "the good example", and kept telling us how the other was so much better than us In fact, I'm way better than him ON CERTAIN ASPECTS! just like he's way beyond my reach on others I can humiliate him in videogames, academics, sports, manual labors and stuff like that, but he has social skills that i have only when dreaming, he has such an easy way to get job after job and i could only watch with envy, but what he sadly fails to realize is exactly that, while i'm better doing X, he's the best at Y because that's just how we turn out to be, we can envy each other all day, but in the end each of us have our own skillset due to years of different life circumstances Yup, 90% of our parents' fault but it's up to ourselves to save the remaining 10% when we must stand on our own 2 feet
What about comparing yourself to your past self? I usually find myself comparing myself this way when I feel like I have grown in some way. It helps to compare because then I learn what I have done or am currently doing to grow out of my younger self and avoid the pitfalls I used to fall into.
I've had to learn the opposite: How to not have the same expectations I had for myself when I was younger compared to now. Different time, different situation, different environment, so sometimes what I was capable of before is now unrealistic
@kshamwhizzle "now if I could take my 34 year old brain and character and put it in my 24 year old body life would be perfect lol" I think you're now comparing yourself to an ideal version of you. I say it because it happens to me too.
What trips me up most about comparisons is that they're also useful for a third reason-- they help you get a sense for what's normal and what you can reasonably expect from reality. As an autistic kid, I never used to compare myself to other people. It didn't occur to me that they were similar enough to me to warrant comparison and I had no frame of reference for what was or wasn't normal. I only ever compared myself to myself. But as I got older, I realized that I am in fact a human too and that several of the things I thought were normal actually had medical terms, or were bullshit ideas I picked up from being raised in a family with a cycle of abuse, trauma, and poor boundary setting. Comparing myself to others has become an invaluable tool for making sure I'm setting appropriate boundaries, having reasonable expectations, and not letting myself be gaslit. It was also useful when I was sick for a few years and needed surgery-- instead of getting mad because I wasn't as productive as I knew I could be when I wasn't sick, I could compare myself to other sick people and recalibrate my expectations. The problem is that once the door to comparison is open, it's SO easy to fall into the other traps. And I think sometimes it can lead us to underestimate ourselves, because we'll assume that if no one else is doing something, we shouldn't expect it from ourselves.
I have a childhood friend who I'm really close with, and I've been trying to get him into self-development content for as long as I can remember, by sharing content like yours sometimes whenever I felt it was relevant. This was because I've always seen a lot of potential in him and thought that this sort of content would help him achieve what he's truly capable of (he's doing pretty well as it is, but I just thought self-improvement content would be a great catalyst). Today he shared me this video of yours and he was telling me that he's been really into your content lately, and how it's helped him immensely in trying to understand his place in the world. It made me really happy and proud as his friend! Thank you so much for doing what you're doing!
Good friend. English is my 2nd language and none of my friends are as close as my levels. They're not into self-improvements so I know that these relationships won't last when we graduate highschool at the end of this month. I wish I had like-minded friends like yours. Maybe I will find some in university
maaan, you're so well spoken and authentic in your talks. I also really enjoy the subjects you choose, and this one hits home especially. Happy holidays and I hope you have a great time!
Having looked into mental health for awhile now, it sucks how a lot of these problems are correlated. Take comparisons for example. A lot people who develop toxic comparisons have this rooted from childhood from bad parenting. And then this ends up affecting your motivation and self esteem. And because all of this sucks, you end up developing depression or anxiety. I love watching these individual topics from Dr. K, it’s just hard to tackle them individually when all of these problems are affected/powered by the other.
Bad parenting how? Looking back, my peers absolutely desolated my self worth the moment I started elementary school. I can't think of anything my parents did to make me have these issues.
As for me, I was raised with pretty good parents (I guess) who never really compared me to my friends or their neighbour's kids when it came to academics. They're content with how I'm doing and will support me fully in what I'm passionate in. Shit only started when my close friends in class kept getting awards and that made me jealous and start comparing myself to them every single time... I think it probably has to do with my parents not having any expectations on me, which pressured me to try and do so well.
@@commentbot9510 Typically in asian households, this problem stems from parents comparing their kids to other kids of the same age doing significantly better. These kids could be your neighbours, friends or even your relatives. They bring it up almost every time especially during family gatherings.
@@johnbonjov1491 Not just Asian parents. Be more like your brother, be less like your father, be more like person x, you're just like person y. Ugh. No. I refuse. Like, thanks mom, for saddling me with + few years to untangle that.
But what if my problem is I'm struggling with comparing myself to my real peers who are my age, not random social media influencers? I get how the latter is unfair, but I don't get how the former is nearly as "unfair" when I went to the same schools as them and knew them for roughly a decade. I literally got left behind by all of my friends. To the point that I'm not even sure how good of friends we were. But they don't suffer from the emotional and psychological issues that I have. They don't have problems with relationships. They're moving into their own places with their significant others. They go out and have fun doing all kinds of different shit while the only thing I have energy for is video games (which aren't even fun anymore) and anime / UA-cam. They can drink alcohol, or partake in some other drugs, without it being a problem. They're in their mid twenties if not younger than me, and doing way better than in me in every metric... I simply cannot handle people who are succeeding and getting all of the things that I want, and living the life that I want, but I can't because I'm intrinsically fucked up or something. It makes me want to die.
I might be wrong/making hella assumptions and idk the external circumstances in your life that have led you to where you are but based on your post and the wording you used you seem to believe that your doomed to your current situation and that you're intrinsically fucked. If you do then it's possible that you comparing yourself is how your mind is trying to justify how you feel about yourself, your worth, or about your life in general. In the video dr.k mentioned that comparison (regardless of who it is your comparing yourself to) is our ego trying to confirm/justify/process what we already believe and feel so I think it's fair to be a little cautious in trusting that the comparison being made is TRULY fair. Because again comparison is more about your internal emotions than the external situations. So maybe a good starting point is learning how to first be aware of and identify what you feel and what causes those feelings then learning how to process those feelings in a healthy way so you don't feel like shit all the time. And obviously I'm not saying that this will fix everything and will lead to you having/doing everything your friends have. But if comparison is what your mind is using to process how you feel then maybe it's better to find actual positive helpful ways to process your emotions that won't leave you feeling like a failure. Healthygamer has the in the feels event that they extended that's all about emotions and processing them so that might be a good place to start. Feel free to ignore this tho if I'm way off the mark. Good luck to you!
your mind is comparing to them because it is telling you that you want those things and you should go get them so you should find out how to do that, maybe get mental health treatment
The majority of your life circumstances are likely completely different from everyone you compare yourself to. Were you born into the same socioeconomic status with the same privileges that may have given the other people advantages over you? Did/Do you have as strong of a relationship with your family from the start as they did, or is their support network just better than yours since the beginning? What other circumstances of theirs are totally different from yours that may have led to this conclusion? Who did or didn't have circumstances at home impacting their school and social lives? Sure you went to the same schools, but who had the ability to study better and get good grades, perhaps with help from their parents? Were your parents equally educated and able to provide that kind of support? It really seems like the only thing you all have in common is that you went to the same school. From there, everything else is completely different. I'll use myself as an example. I went to college for music. I discovered in middle school that I had a real talent for it and I came to really love music to the point that I wanted to be a pro. When I got there I realized that despite my talent that I had been praised for, I was woefully behind everyone else and wondered how they could be so great when we were the same age. There were even students who already got professional gigs. It took a while for me to realize that while I had just started my music education in middle school, some of these people were literally born into music, both parents musicians, having professional tutelage from the time they could hold an instrument. It was a simple matter of circumstances being on their side. They had more time to develop their skills and/or talents, their parents had the financial ability to pay for lessons, their parents had the knowledge to teach and reinforce and help them develop the discipline to practice to get that good, parents who knew what it took to get that good. I had none of that. Of course they would be better than me! It took me a lot longer to get through my degree program, but in the end I still did it. Sure, the people I graduated with were years younger than me. In the end though we got the same expensive piece of paper (diploma) and are all professional musicians. tl;dr The playing field is not and never will be level, but that doesn't mean you can't succeed.
Not having enough energy is an excuse, if you can join them at those fun things. Do it. Even if you really do not feel like it. And yes i am an introvert. Im giving this advice because i struggle the same way. They wont leave you behind if you make an effort to be there
Hey there. In what way do you feel that your peers (who went to the same school and you knew for a decade) is a "fair" comparison? Why does being from the same school make it fair? What other things there is that makes it fair? Dr K is right; we tend to not compare if we feel good and chilling, so is it correct to say you feel some level of unhappiness or discontent? What emotion is driving you to make the comparison at all, regardless of whether the comparison is fair?
The thing is when you become better than the ones you compare yourself and you get validation from others it feels so good and your ego gets stroked so hard
Holy shit yeah or even when it comes to yourself. The fucked up part it feeds the insecurity. It validates your ego that your better but it also does the insecurity. The more you rise the harder your fall. That’s why it’s not enough that you achieve cause the insecurity is still there.
December was a very dark month for me; I’ve been struggling to find a job and simply felt forgotten by the people I considered my friends. But what triggers me the most is that I have two friends who I constantly compare to because we work in the same field and I just feel like a failure for not being able to keep a job for the past 3 years when they even have 3 jobs at the same time. But what hurt me the most was 2 weeks ago that one of them told me they got an interview into a company I’ve applied in the past. I lost my mind over that information. Of course I was happy for them but the fact that they managed to get an interview when they have so many other things in their lives that they aren’t quite actively looking for another job and meanwhile the ONLY THING I DO EVERY DAY is to apply to jobs and practice my skills to enter a specific industry… I lost my mind, to the point of feeling useless, worthless and not even deserving to exist anymore. They are 4 years younger than me, I started working slightly earlier and we worked on the same company for a while. But when I got fired back on 2020, they got to stay longer, and even almost was about to get a second job at the same time. Meanwhile I was struggling in all aspects of my life. I can’t help but to keep comparing myself to them, we basically work on the same thing and yet they are the one who get everything while for me seems like no matter how hard I try, no one notice.
Hey there hope you're doing slightly better 2 months later :) I know shit's hard but focus on yourself and try to get through one step at a time. Everyone's journey is different some may take a little longer while some may be quicker when it comes to trying to figure things out. To the younglings who got what you wanted. Maybe they were much more passionate or had skills that the employer was looking for, or it might even be luck. Sometimes reality is just cruel and life treats you unfairly but I hope you keep up the effort because I for one, recognise your perseverance. Trust me when you look back and think of that job you didn't get, you'd be grateful. By then you would have found what you're passionate about and enjoy the job you're currently working in. Most importantly, don’t beat yourself up. Everyone has different strengths, and people learn at different paces. Your learning journey is ultimately a personal one, and comparing yourself to other people won’t help you learn.
Powerful stuff here. I'm far past middle age and growing up, you had so few people to compare to or with. You could visit neighbor's houses and compare what you had to what they had. You had family you would/could do that with. Now, it's the whole world. What a massive difference.
I struggle with comparison because my entire life, other people compared me to my peers. I was the ADHD kid, then the depression kid. It was always "Everyone else can do it, why can't you?"
I feel this. It’s just you try but then fail cause something isn’t working for you but get blamed for not getting it. I am just finding out that people don’t know other people are just different and what works for you is more important than the standard.
I feel like the school system unfortunately supports the system of selfdestructing upward comparison. I don‘t know about schools in other countries, but in Germany teachers will give you the statistics of every test, so you can see, how many students got which grade. I never had the impression that this was meant to be motivational. It was alsways like „you got a C, but 15 others had a B or an A, so you did not do well“ or „you got a C, but only four others got a B or an A, so you were actually oretty good“. We are trained to live in a system, where you are only good when you are better than others. We learn to see people who are better that us as a thread, not an inspiration. I never heard people in my classes say „oh, this student is so good, I want to be like that“. In opposite, people tried to bring good students down by saying stuff like „oh yes but she also does nothing but studying“. I really do think that our upbringing (at least in Germany) plays a huge part in how we compare ourselves to others in our later life.
This is basically the whole character of Tahani in the Good Place. She was the best out of all of them, including Elenor but she could not, for the life of her, stop comparing herself to her successful sister. I loved her because she was so relatable, and captured this thought process so perfectly. 😂
That sounds a lot like me (except I'm not the best at anything, just really good on being pretty good at some things). What is this Good Place that you speak of?
@@delavidaebella it's a comedy show on Netflix that has 4 seasons! Talks about the afterlife in a funny/philosophical way, and the 4 main characters Eleanor, Chidi, Jason, and Tahani are very colorful and go through major changes/character development throughout the show. I highly recommend it!
Man this is my main problem, I like to think I don't care what people think about me but I do. I care a lot. It's the things I can't change mainly that gets me
Just because no one is superior, or inferior, doesn't mean they're people are unequal and that doesn't mean that people have to be different or unique, because they don't have to
A timely video. I'm not/can't provide a complete picture but here's my problem. My dream is to become a content creator of a field, and my most severe trigger of sadness is seeing someone younger than me already at where I want to be at maybe a few years. I know for a truth, that it is not a fair comparison because: My parents told me this dream was garbage back when I was a kid, and I feel threatened to fulfill their academic demands of me because I've seen how angry they were at me even just by playing games longer than I was supposed too. What if I say I'm going to just do the bare minimum of my studies and spend the rest of my time and energy on this dream that they call a beggar's profession? Now as an adult with some savings I finally feel like I'm can break those chains and start, because we all only live once. I wish I can have a counter measurement to reduce this subconscious comparison which fucks up my mind for the day so I can focus more energy on improving rather than picking up my corpse.
I'm in the exact same boat I focused very hard on academics so far in my life finished college earlier this year with a 3.9 gpa (now I'm 23) and with the end of college I had time to reflect and evalute what I want. I also want to be a content creator and also start doing art again but I currently live with my mom (apartments are extremely expensive over here) and I consistently get told my passions are a fantasy and it's a waste trying to pursue them and the only way to survive in life is to climb the corporate ladder and do your 9-5. So on one side home life becomes a mental barrier and then on the other hand on social media I also tend to compare to people younger and start to think things like "Maybe it's too late for me to start" and "I should of started stuff 3 years ago when I was 20. Even though I know logically 23 is still very young it still is a huge mental battle so I totally understand the struggle.
You only live once. How great would it be to explore all things and be closer to yourself. I hope you're one day free. Hell, you're free now, you're able to mull the decision over. Back then you didn't have enough power for being held back by them to be a choice. You have a choice now, choose freedom. "You have the right to change your mind/ you can modify your decision when something happens to the original attempt.
Idk if this will help, but the harsh reality of content creation kinda helps you in this case. Whether someone is older or younger is irrelevant, you just need to stand out and deliver content people want. Your lived experiences will help to serve a special tone and flavor in your content; you just gotta let it. If it doesn't work out, it's not because you were too late. It just isn't working out, yknow?
@SereneSoul First and foremost, I am just gonna share my story a little bit more, my case can be different than yours so please feel free to not give a damn if it sounds wrong. I think we can agree on it is tiresome to live for someone else's beliefs. I am 27 now and also doing art stuff. I started learning from 24 when I quit my job after saving most of my one year salary after working, finding out that my parents' reasoning for hardcore academics was to ensure you have a job that gives you free time to do stuff on your break time, which was the complete opposite for the 2 jobs I tried. I was not as good so just 3.4gpa albeit, from a respectable uni globally. I've seen people in the same field managing corporate and art simultaneously, while I struggled to even stay awake after commuting back home. I concluded that it may actually be because they are "built different" and I chose to try living while minimising expenses with my parents as much as possible, at the 3rd year mark of learning from scartch I can make money but not I can live independently money. They also started giving too much pressure and I chose to spill the beans of never wanting a corporate job and say I'm going to move out for a year, abroad, to have some time alone and here I am now in a foreign country sustaining myself with the salary I saved while trying to make the most out of this year. I am a case of not making it yet 4 years after starting from somewhere similar to you, but still running and going and alive(although bothered by the problem on my first post), and one case cannot really represent anything. I chose to, hopefully, live the rest of my life that if I fail, I would be the only person to blame and here are the results so far. Hopefully it provides some sort of reference, or just some relief that we're not alone. Call it bullcrap if you find it absurd and it's totally a fine thing to do, because I'm not you. Don't trust me just because I'm older. Stay strong!
@@vira2936 I don't think your experiences are absurd at all, it is totally valid and I share the belief that if I fail or succeed I want that to be on me and my efforts that I had control over. I think the idea of living abroad for a short time is a great idea! Not only for the ability for you to get away and have alone time but also for the fact that I assume it would expand your perspective (I haven't been to another country). But anyways let's both give it our all and I wish you the best of luck!
"upward comparisons were designed to give us a roadmap to improve our lives ...And downward comparisons were designed to help us develop an emotional coping strength that helps us in the short term" I love how every emotion, action or thought actually has value and purpose. We just didn't adapt well to new societal environments therefore not valuing from their true function, which means nothing is bad - it's just that we're using it wrong.
This is true comparison will ruined your mental health, my parents always condition my mind to compare myself to others, as a result I been grow shy, insecure and have poor self-esteem. Comparison is a technique used by most parents to motivate you and to control you, until you used to make all you decision in life is based on comparison on what people lifes success would be... It takes 32 years of my life to break the generational cursed of toxic parenting. I very thankful to my live in partner she is the one the reason Ive open my mind about my true life situation, If she didnt came into my life, Ive been insane now and grow old immature.
I think I understand the message. What I find hard however, is finding a good balance. It is true, comparing yourself to someone with ten or even a hundred times the experience of oneself is not fair. But, I think one must also not lose track of whats possible and what the elite looks like when aiming for greatness. Its just very very tough to combine these two aspects.
This helped me learn a lot about myself as someone who compares himself all the time to others which has led me to waste my time on things I am not even interested in just so I can feel like I am better than them at that particular thing to satisfy my ego, thanks a lot doc
I actually sometimes feel like it keeps me from trying to improve certain things... For example, i might think, that im scared of trying to learn something new because I know other people that are wayyy better than me already at it... and i dont really know where to go from here to fix this problem... I think it might be a problem with procrasinating tho im not sure :(
Two types of comparisons: 1. Upward comparison - comparing to someone better then us 2. Downward comparison - comparing to someone worse than us Why we make comparisons: 1. Upward comparison: to analyze and mimic to do what the other person is doing, finding where we can improve ourselves. 2. Downward comparison: to protect our ego and feel better in the moment. 1. To find out who we are and have a sense of identity. And allow us to form where we are in life and where we want to be. Who we decide to compare ourselves to: Someone we consider is in "our league" , someone we see some aspects of his life are similar to ours, like same school, siblings, friends, anything that says me and the other person are in the same bucket. How comparisons are made: We take one aspect of a person life and compare it with the same aspect in ours, and not considering all the different variables. In upward comparisons we pick the best aspect of each person and compare them to our aspects, one person's net worth, another person's physical shape, etc we don't compare all different aspects of the same human with all of our aspects, the exact opposite happens with downward comparisons. Why are comparisons bad: 1. The comparisons we do are very unfair and based solely on things that are shown to us. 2. Upward comparisons - makes us feel inferior, and make our success seem like a failure in comparison to others thus reducing our motivation. 3. Downward comparisons makes us feel superior and validate us thus prevents us from improving because we feel good enough, also it is only a temporary solution 4. Due to all reasons above we get a false sense of identity that is not connected with reality. How to stop comparing: 1. Question why your brain decide to choose this person to compare to 2. Ask why is my brain think it's a fair comparison and discover why the comparison isn't complete 3. Notice the comparisons happen not based on critical thinking and are not relational 4. The sense of identity, aka the ego, is the part that makes the comparisons, so in order to stop comparing, focus on the negative emotional state, because it will trigger the ego and start making comparisons 5. Reduce the sense of identity, aka ego
I think in the age of social media it's also almost always a very unfair comparison. The person you admire for their relationship likely won't publicly post about how they had a petty argument last night or all the small things they dislike about their partner. The good cook won't post the meal they accidentally burnt or tell you how they added too much salt to the dish. An artist won't show you all the discardes works, or even how their work looked in the early phases before they polished it up. Social media is so incredibly curated, so people often appear to be doing a lot better than they actually are, while you yourself don't get the perfect polished version of your life, you have to go through all the steps, all the problems, all the failures that other people don't tell you about, so that evokes a feeling of "These people are all doing so well, what am doing wrong?" when actually they'll often face a lot of similar struggles to what you're going through
1:25 hits home. I started going on walks at my local beach to disconnect for a bit. You know what I see? A fuckton of happy couples while I'm there alone lmao. The comparison doesn't just stop because it's offline.
This is a problem for me as well. Lately I have came out of my shell and have asked girls out, but everytime its been a flop. My confidence will skyrocket before I approach them, but ultimately after when I get rejected my confidence plummets very low. I dont have any clear answers or advice. So im just gonna say that im here if you wanna talk about it more. We will get through this 🤙
@@PhysicallyDetarded thats the whole point of flirting, to figure out if theyre interested. If they dont put out signals that they are rejection is likely. Talk to them for longer first. Give small compliments, see their reactions etc.
@@PhysicallyDetarded You have taken a massive first step; you miss all shots you don't take! Now it's just a numbers game, eventually you will find a date if you keep trying :) you a legend KM!
Dr K. This is the cheat code I have been looking for to break my comparison fueled anxiety that sometimes gets to the point of paralysis. Thank you so much for the work you do. I am studying to be a Psychologist myself and you are an inspiration. I hope to one day repay the help you have given me by helping others.
I think that stuff about the ego is huge. Like that applies to a lot of stuff and I'm hoping it'll be useful for me to catch myself trying to validate negative emotions, thinking that's all I can do and even what I _should_ do.
Sometimes we even subconsciously choose to make a comparison with a certain person even though deep inside we know that's unfair only for us to NOT make any changes and keep us in our familiar, comfortable place. Or in other words: we pick the wrong people to compare to just to have an excuse to be stuck. Or in even fewer words: self sabotage.
I think downward comparisons help me cope emotionally whenever I am depressed, I just watch To Catch a Predator on UA-cam. Seeing Preds/Pedos get busted makes me feel better about my life instantly!
I have a huge problem comparing myself to others. I'm insecure, and I don't want to sound like I'm blaming my mom but as a kid she would compare me to my cousin every single day. Telling me my cousins achievements and asking why I haven't gotten honor roll or why I'm not getting A's like my cousin. I grew to hate my cousin, I want my moms approval but talking my cousin years later, her upbringing wasn't as good as I thought. I stopped hating her but I grew a resentment towards my mom because I still, even to this day, feel like she doesn't approve of me and not just her, I feel like I need to prove myself to everyone so they'll accept me. I still have trouble accepting myself
@nafiseh212 you and me both. I'm still extremely insecure but the only thing is that I've been able to catch myself whenever i start comparing Best of luck to you friend
@@WaxwingSlain I got used to it.. to be honest with you what really puts me in ease sometimes is that there are plenty of people outside with this problem.. Wish you the best luck and happiness..
My mother constantly delivers these comparisons to my life. She’ll read about some young pilot who juggled two prestigious schools, became doctor on the side and had several kids in the process and then says “See? Easy.” Then she expects me to “get it” and immediately become super-efficient-never-depressed person that crushes life.
I totally get you! I get the same from my Dad. No matter what I do there's always someone doing what am doing but better! I broke free when I realized I'll never be good enough for "his" standards.
It is something I've had to combat on my own, and honestly I consider myself lucky for even getting that opportunity. It's all thanks to the fact that I've sort of matured while being in this highly competitive/harsh community of creators (hobby level designers). Taking a few months long break was the one thing that really helped me rethink why I kept comparing myself. It's liberating once you find the solution, now the challenge is to keep it up and not go back to those toxic ways of thinking.
Very enlightening video. Thank you! Your explanation about social media really echoed with one of my biggest life lesson opportunity I got. When I was a student in Boston, I had a MIT student in microbiology as roommate in Boston. He was so damn impressive! I compared myself a lot to him as I was ambitious to be the best student possible. But living with him under the same roof revealed to me all sacrifices he had to do in his life that you can't see the rest of the time. He is an expert in one specific domain but it was at the expense of his social life, life skills like cooking, his free time, his emotions etc. So many important things I felt he was missing to experience for just one title in a prestigious school. After this day, I stopped myself comparing to him and I understood that every strong success in one domain comes with sacrifices on other aspect of your life (which you don't see on social media).
The part where you talk about validating your current state or self image by comparing to others and by looking for an explanation just to so your mind rests in peace with the logic that confirms everything that happend. Sometimes I have thought about it when trying to understand other people´s problems, but strangely enough never though about my own issues in that way. Thank you!
as somebody pursuing an art minor having only started making art seriously as a college student, i find comparisons both helpful and hurtful at the same time. when i compare my work to somebody elses from a specific project or assignment i feel much worse. when comparing my art overall to somebody else's overall art, it inspires me to improve to reach that level of mastery.
Alot of people treat life as a never ending rat race a climb to the "top" more money, better job, more power, more influence. This is all classed as successful by many people and thats the issue. Success or failure is whatever you think it is. We get one life to live for sure. Some may be happy and content living in a tent and consider themselves to be very successful if they enjoy life and are at peace then how is that not successful? Constantly chasing more and more stuff wheb we all die the same we don't take any of it with us. Be at peace be happy and content with enjoying and loving life as much as u can on your own terms dont compare yourself to people who are not you and don't think like you. As dr k said once the world and its systems and infrastructure is all designed and out together by other people and we need to break free of this idea of conforming to singular ideas of success and happiness and how we should be educated etc etc. we are all different and all born into a world were we have no say in any of it and we have to survive in our unique ways
Comparison has been a bane to my existence, in a bi-directional way. I often try to do constructive upward comparisons. When I can't figure out how to do it, that's when things go wrong. Asking for advice is often met with "stop comparing yourself, you're fine". I've come to learn that just asking your friends is not a stable strategy. You gotta ask the coaches and the veterans. On the flipside. When I am good or (even worse) the best at something, lofty expectations are given to me. I can't ever fall below that bar, or else I'm given crap for being so easily defeated. These were rarely words said I'm my head. Often it's the winner putting me down. After a while those words start to live in my head, and It sucks.
I feel like this is something we all know instinctually. At the same time, it's genuinely hard to escape the prodigious amount of competition in everything in the modern world (dating, job market, social media, etc) so the common guy will be stuck in a loophole of comparing himself to others unless he makes an actual effort to detach himself from these things
@@jdanjdan Actively look at how our circumstances aren't the other person's. Often people have been doing something longer, have had more support for it (small loan of a milion dollars, the snark in me says), and have more talent for it. Your background, skills and abilities are incomparably different. E.g. I, as a mildly autistic kid, had to learn the ins and outs of something as socially complex as diplomacy and behavior in a wide variety of circles (put a bunch of politicans and CEOs into a "party" and try not to bleed out of boredom. Bonus points for catching the 3-layer veiled threats and insults). It's zero wonder I had massive self esteem issues, and my academics suffered because I spent so much time on constructing complex systems of how people (or worse, politicians) work. So I ended up with a wierd set of exhausting people skills and half-baked science skills, the first of which make people baffled as to why I struggle with the latter. You've got your own stories, I'm sure. Parents didn't teach, lack of rescources, time, unaware of it, ilness, genetic lottery. The only person you can conpare yourself to is yourself- and even that's iffy, because you can get injuries and grow old, and your skills profile will change.
I was supposed to curl up, I was supposed to back down, I was supposed to fade, evaporate into the background.... I was supposed to never be nothing, but I made it to something, I knew I could do it, I'll prove it!
My brain always talked like: "If i am smart/good enough to be capable of doing it, why aren't you?" (i had like -10 self esteem) That was like the default comparison in my mind.
There is also an important factor that should be discussed, is how to handle circumstances when everyone you talk to compares YOU to someone else. Aka. your relatives example.. That kind of social norm would further worsen your tendency for comparison, not just the ones Ego driven.
This video came on my recommended at such a perfect time. Especially within the last few years, comparison has been an area where I've struggled. Since birth, I've had mild CP which effects my left arm and leg. Growing up, particularly around 16 and onward, it was extremely easy for me to notice how other girls were gaining their independence whereas my journey was slower. Until recently, I finally had an epiphany: Why am I comparing myself to able-bodied young women? Which has since morphed into, why should I compare myself at all? I've realized that (however cliche it might sound) that everyone is truly on their own path. It has been comforting to me to remember that the "right" and "wrong" timing doesn't really exist. Accepting that this is the way my life looks, getting rid of bitterness and comparison, resting and not striving... Have really helped me look at comparison in a completely different way. Especially towards independence. I have caught myself comparing either up or down, and it's wild the effect that both have. I'm not usually one who posts comments often, but I hoped that my experience with comparison given my life situation might encourage others.
I really appreciate this video. The vast majority of my life I’ve compared myself to other people and really hurt myself using drugs, alcohol, negative self talk, starvation of love, etc to really anchor in self hatred. I’m trying so hard to Love me and allow grace and forgive for myself for treating me so poorly. It’s not easy, but it is doable.
It is definitely true when you are not feeling great that comparisons come in. Comparing was never something I did, but it has happened on a few occasions the last years. They usually pass when I think of the ways their situation is different to mine.
I compare myself to the people in my real life, not random internet strangers. And I don’t use social media other than UA-cam. These comparisons aren’t addicting, I don’t seek them out, they just appear as I’m playing with teammates. It’s still distressing. I’ve never been distressed about internet people in the way I am about real people I know. Are these comparisons the ones that lead to improvement?
Oh god, you got to the "people asking me whaty job is" part, and I was immediately like "Hell yes that's how I feel!" I've never had any job I think of as "worthy of respect," even though I'd never pass that kind of judgement on anyone else. Retail worker, delivery driver...there've only been 2 jobs I wasn't embarrassed to tell anyone. And I realize that's silly because again, if someone told ME they worked those jobs, I wouldn't think any differently about them at all. I suppose that could be because we're on the same level, but it's 1 am and I'm not sure I have the energy to go that deep. 😛
Thanks, Dr K, for this video - me and my friend applied to the same super selective university and recently we found out the results - he was accepted, I was rejected. It hurt a lot but I'm wishing him a good time in that university & moving on to other good choices for myself!
Why I'm comparing myself and get all stressed up unnecessarily is when my family members compare me to others, picking people they know similar to my age or amount siblings. Some lousy friends would do that too. My way to be less stressful is to NOT GIVASHEET about their words but it will still hurt because I'm an HSP. sheeeeet~
For me the only valuable comparison is to my past self. Comparing yourself to others is an unwinnable game. It doesn't matter where you are in life, if you're a better person than you were a year ago you're doing good. 🙂
I found this ESPECIALLY. I would always compare myself to others and others expectations and it was not healthy for my mental. I found this out pretty fast (like 4 months) so I was able to get out of the state I was heading towards.
It's so hard to avoid going on online when you are a content creator or an artist. You have to check what's hot what's new to make a new content and you will have to "mingle" or check up on other content creators/artists to build connection or learn what they've done right to improve yourself. Most days I just fall into a hole of comparison that hurts me more than motivates or inspires me. I've asked so many people how they deal with this issue and a lot of their answers (i.e. "just stop comparing yourself you are already great as you are!" to ""you draw better than me!") don't really click with me. But that kind of makes sense now because everyone's different and I need to ask myself why like you said more than asking others for the specific solutions they have for themselves
Love this. I’ve always loved that quite “comparison is the thief of joy.” It really does effect your mental health. That’s part of the reason why I’m barely on social media and it’s actually easy for me cause I was never big on social media anyway.
I hope you see this Healthy gamer team. I am having lots of guilt about leaving people hurt to get out of situation , or not knowing that my actions would hurt them. Have taken decisions in haste that has effected people. I feel hurt for not recognising that they were going through their own trouble when I retaliated for the trouble they caused me. There is so many things that keeps going through my head and want to be rid of it. Because that's the path I go through whenever I feel bad. Please make a video on it. How to handle the guilt and shame.
I can be perfectly happy, content and be chilling and still suddenly compare myself to someone I'm talking to or see in the media. There's no way to deal with the emotion first because it's produced by the automatic comparison. But I guess that's where the fair comparison comes in. It's just so incredibly difficult to stay fair.
Omg the "bucket" thing lol, I'll tell people, "thanks I got it at Walmart," and watch their face change lol. I do shop at Walmart a lot, but for me it's a good way to see what they think lol
Same. Sometimes I find really nice clothes at Walmart and people would ask me where I bought it from and their faces immediately change when I say where it's from. It's as if they don't believe me.
@@tvu24 for me it's less of them believing me, it's more that they whole heartedly do and I'm suddenly asigned a particular value. It bothered me a lot a lot in junior high and high school but it's just kinda eventually taught me the, idk, shallowness? of others. And yeah! Sometimes I find a pretty good gem at Walmart and get so excited to buy it! I have to take care of my clothes because I never learned to sew or patch up things so I still have stuff from years ago that I really love!
It’s obvious to anyone who has spent enough time on social media that comparison within the ego is detrimental to one’s happiness. It is a cheap replacement for self-improvement and self-worth. We see people “better” than us and hope to be like them, only to feel incapable of having what others achieve. Or we witness those “worse” than ourselves in an attempt to feel good in the moment. I experience this especially when I’m depressed and fall into an almost addictive cycle of comparison where I find short bursts of gratification only to experience long periods of dread and insecurity afterwards. The best way to combat this cycle is to notice when your mind is making comparisons and to shoot them down immediately. Understand that we are all unique beings interacting within an obscure world and comparison is unfair and unhelpful. The issue with dismantling a comparative complex in an increasingly comparative society, however, is that much of our reward systems are built on a foundation of ego. So in pursuit of non-comparison, my subconscious’ justification for this dismantlement is the reward of judging others in their inability to not compare. This is an ironic paradox that I am privy of falling into. I judge myself for judging others, and then in turn judge others who do the same, and then I judge myself again for judging them for judging. In order to break this cycle, I must find a different reward system. To truly remove unhealthy comparison from my mind I must change the justification. Comparison is unhealthy and depressing. Comparison causes me pain. Me feeling pain is bad because I am a decent soul; worthy of happiness. So it seems the core of my complex is my lack of love for myself. I must love myself and truly want what’s best for me in order to circumvent my pain. Once this is achieved, my systems will follow suit and adjust in service to my health, not fleeting pleasure. I have crafted this rationalization. Now, I must strive for habitual nature instead. We are social creatures. I crave connection and sociability. The root of this compulsion should be to experience joy, not to feel better than others or to make others feel better. I must imagine a state where I am all alone and yet I still find peace. Once I achieve this, I can begin rebuilding a social circle of people who make me happy. This is where it gets tricky. How do you decide who to trust and be friends with independent of comparison? I can’t be friends with anyone, unless I wish to be betrayed. Don’t hate people for their differences, but find what kind of ideology and behavior to be most supportive. Rationality over empiricism: Worldly belief based in evidence over intuition Loyalty: Friends to immoral enemies are no friends at all Trust: do they use you? Do they lie to you? What promises are not kept? Open-mindedness: Those who judge expression/identity are doomed to judge you also Morality: Most things are forgivable, some things are not Comfortability: Do they warm your soul?
I believe downward comparisions can be more than a coping mechanism. When you are learning a subject it might help to determine and recap how far you've come and what mistakes you made.
I think comparing myself to other people has been really useful, overall. I did learn around highschool that it was not good to compare myself in my achievements compared to others, because lets say in sports, the vast majority that do really well only do well because over 90% of the other people barely try. Same is true for education. So instead, I take whatever I am really interested in and as im growing in that skill I compare myself to all the other people who are also trying to put in maximum effort. I take this same approach to many things. Ofc this only works well because I take into consideration peoples different physical attributes and different lifestyles and upbringing, which all play massive moles in terms of anyone's success. People work really well in teams because they have other people on their side they can compare themselves to. People train harder and run faster in athletics when they have other people around to compete against and compare themselves to. You ever see someone about to give up and then a bunch of people start cheering them on or someone gets close to beating them and they have a burst of motivation to push through? That affect rarely happens in isolation to yourself, comparison can bring inspiration. I guess what I mean to say is I don't think its a good thing to NEVER compare yourself to other people, just don't make it the exclusive way you judge your own worth or success, there will also always be others out there that can do things you cannot do. How would I know the quality of something I make without comparing it to the other great works out there? How would I know the value of all those great works had I not attempted to make some, thing great myself? All that said, the best person to COMPETE against is yourself, only you are a good reference point for what 100% effort looks like and where you were before you improved. I suppose it is also very helpful to have the ability to NOT compare yourself to others on command. You gotta have a separation between the two extremes every once in a while. EDIT: I don't know if I find downward comparisons useful at all. I kinda don't do it anymore, at least not actively. I never liked others downplaying my (or others) problems because someone somewhere in the world had it worse and did more.
I don’t care about not comparing, I want to know what I can do to not keep making the mistakes that make me regret and harm those around me. I don’t care about my own well being, I just want to not hurt those around me, and it seems everything I do to try and make my life more stable only hurts those around me.t that’s where comparison comes in for me, I look back on my past and have nothing but regret, and look ahead and see nothing but struggles. Comparing is all that’s kept me going, knowing that there are those worse off and I have to keep trying.
An Issue I have with this or at least in understanding is sure none of us are under the same circumstances, but a lot of us are competing over the same/similar resources. Money, Attention, Attraction, influence, and in some areas success. Sure the Comparisons tend to be unfair, but lesson that taught allot is "life isn't fair". Life doesn't care if they were given a bad start or squandered a good one, if enough people are better and/or show up soon at carving out a spot in a niche that they considered to be a part of they won't find success in said niche. I'm just putting this out here to challenge my perceptions.
This was probably one of the best videos I've seen from you so far. I could relate way too well to this and hearing it was like a wake up call. Thank you for this.
People also need to realize that everyone has a life as complicated and in depth as yourself. No matter how much you may think that's not the case it is. No matter how much you follow someone, unless you live with them there are so many aspects about their life you will never know or understand. It's literally impossible to know everything going on with them. The saying about walking in someone else's shoes is no joke. Unless you were there for the start of their life you will never fully understand them so to compare yourself to such a degree with them is silly!
i feel like im just being honest with myself when i compare with others who are better than me. and it just feels wrong to lie to myself about my place in the world and status and appearance and stuff. i’m just being honest with myself and trying to stay realistic, i guess
External comparisons is what I struggle with. Family and friends comparing me with other family members or other people, both positive and negative comparison... it just unnerves me because some times it feels like people don't actually want you to be yourself.
I think this video has really focus on comparison around skills and with different people. My real issue is to compare myself with people on my friend groups, or compare around vital milestone in which we are in, or personality traits (I wanna be talkative as them, or flirt like them…). It feels like this type of comparison will require a different approach. A video on that could be really useful.
it helps when i compare my old self to the me now, i leaned new thing and everyday i try to learn a new thing to improve myself and most importantly be better than my old self
My issue is comparing myself to others is always with my friends. The only time its with someone I don't know or barely know its when they'd be in the same "league". Like when my brother tells me a friend of his just graduated, studied games design and makes really good stuff...I still havent graduated though I should've and I can't make anything despite almost being done with school. Hell almost all my game design classes are over and I know almost the same amount as when I went in. And that's just a person I dont know. Lord knows how many comparisons I make to my friends, and my roommate especially...
Quit social medias, don't watch influencers on yt, find something simple to do what you enjoy and get better with it. Tadam, I gave you a recipe to get joy from everyday struggles.
Why does it matter how many views a video gets so important? Also if you do something well or great someone says here is an 11 year old girl doing the same dance and has 11 million views!😱 Social media does Minimize Us as individuals and it’s becomes a fight to NOT feel insignificant.
I’ve never compared to non humans, I’m high a functioning autistic, and my understanding of people isn’t intuitive, it’s observational, It’s not a lack of empathy, if I see someone crying in the side of the road I tear up and want to ask them what’s wrong. I compare my miseries and trials to that of others I see around me and try to put it into perspective, that my suffering is not so great, but lately even though I can tell myself that, it doesn’t seem to work, and I just keep sinking lower.
Wow, 19:15, the part about comparing yourself to your ex's new guys was exactly me last week. It was the catalyst to finally unfollowing her because I recognized that it's bad for me to be making those comparisons and it felt like an invasion of privacy as though I were spying on her new life.
Throwing this out there as video starts, yes comparison can be damaging, especially through the internet and social media. For my own situation, I dumped Facebook after I saw three of my friends get married within a week. It made me so envious, I felt physically sick, like I wanted to throw up, so I decided I couldn't do it anymore. Now, I use FB strictly for the marketplace and private chat rooms with friends. Other social media however such as tumblr I still follow because it follows people who are far enough removed from my own life so it's easier to remember that this stuff isn't real and even if it is it has little to no effect on my life.
I always found people to be hypocrtical about this. Very often if you're going through a bad time, people are happy to tell you to think about those who are even worse off to make yourself feel better. But when its the other way around, and you compare in a way that helps you see your life even worse, they tell you comparing is stupid. Cant have it both ways.
I hate that too. Those people lack empathy. Otherwise, they'd know that that advice wouldn't help.
It seems impatient to me.
That’s how I feel too but I’ve never voiced this out to someone who’s given me this advice because they’d probably say I’m overcomplicating things. It’s just like, can’t I just feel happy/sad about a situation w/o having to compare whether it’s valid or not against another person?
that's usually because they aren't thinking before they respond, and are only giving you canned responses they heard online to try to make you feel better. These people probably aren't trying to be malicious, they usually just can't think for themselves. Not excusing it, just doing my best to explain it so it hurts less.
Suffering is relative, we also use that excuse to not have empathy for people that have generally have good lives like they aren't allowed to suffer because they have it better than most, I fell for that part a lot it fills you with resentment and victim mentality.
I think we both have the same idea here. Like others said, it's a canned response. So much so, even I know better and STILL say "you can't compare yourself to others." For some ppl it works, but for most, especially those with mental health issues, it's just not that easy. Personally my comparison is very impulsive. Don't even realize I'm comparing myself until it's too late.
What really freed me of comparisons is that i found out no comparison is fair, with no exceptions. You can have a twin with whom you spend your every second and be in vastly different positions in life.
The reason is, there are so many factors which people get shaped by. It doesn't mean that it's fair to compare yourself with your classmates, siblings or basically any person that you think you are in the same league just because you are being shaped by the same environment(you might be in the same school), same people(same social circle) and other stuff(maybe the same social background?).
You are not in the same league with any person on this planet. This doesn't mean that you are below or above anybody, it means that everybody is being shaped by endless number of different variables that it will NEVER be fair to compare two people who seem to be in the "same league."
edit: you can read some sociological theories if you're interested in this style of thinking.
I think comparisons are fine, as long as we don't try to justify our negative emotions with them. Example: if I like vtubers, I could think:"talking to a chat and playing games looks so fun! If they can, I can also!" That is a comparison but a helpful one, since you are going to act. Now, if you start to feel bad screaming on a vacuum on yt and think"bleh, those big vtubers are so much better than me and hog all attention I could get" now you are justifying your negative emotions. Now you will not do anything and will be sad about it.
Yeah I think what we all eventually realise is that comparing yourself to other people, and putting them on an unnecessarily high pedestal is just an impractical thought process...
@@bapbirb personally for me, I feel that by putting them on a pedestal I’m hiding from my own faults and victories. It’s like a shortcut, why ponder my value when I can just say everyone has more than me.
@@DankMcDANK1738 Yeah. I think alot of us struggle with self protective/preserving thought process that actually helps us to minimize stress, but in the long run they are destructive to our own lives. I have really bad avoidant tendencies and oh my.. the excuses and conclusions that come up in my head are very cunning.. but also foolish.😭
What really helps with this is having people with different backgrounds as your friends. If you start comparing them, you'll start comparing yourself along those lines as well.
I have a lot of friends that do manual labour, i myself was at college for a few years and had some friends there. For one group, i am the smart, weak guy that can't do shit with his hands, for the other i'm the pragmatic that knows his way around tools.
now i could just compare myself with these groups and see that one group is far more strong and dextrous than me, while the other seems to have fewer issues studying. or i could compare the groups with each other and then make an assessment of myself, it's nearly impossible to really come out thinking i'm REALLY bad at anything. or, if i am that bad at it, i know someone who can help me (i have to learn to ask for help, but that's another issue...).
And no, i will not call anyone stupid here, the college kids might be more intelligent, but wisdom is very evenly distributed.
Also, play TTRPGs, everyone has their use at some point. And even if someone might be "more useful" in most cases, there's always a moment for someone to shine. Once you see that, you can compare everyone (including yourself) with a much better lens. Even though you might not see a use for someone right now, you probably just don't know them well enough.
i do occasionally feel superior to an ant thank you for asking
but do you feel superior to two ants?
Can you carry 10 to 50 times your bodyweight? If you can't, let me tell you that ant does 🐜 lol
@@cyberfuture2077 can an ant speedrun minecraft? I THINK NOT
@@obsoleteophanim lol they play minecraft in IRL
@@cyberfuture2077 oh my gosh that’s actually a good point i never thought of that. damn i guess we are inferior to ants then 😭😭
Don't compare yourself to others - that's an easy thing to say but life trains you to compare yourself. Think about it, you are being rated, compared to others nearly anywhere you go (at school, at work, when applying for work, when dating).
i think it’s more into comparing oneself in personal occasions, like during a family dinner or a casual conversation. comparison as a form of creating competition is fine if not necessary; but comparison as a form of boasting ego or criticism (is it criticism? idk) is a big NO
Possibly, some things I’ve discovered help me is to actively step into the negative comparisons. I don’t just stop comparing myself. I have to practice the thought pattern of challenging those comparisons. I say to myself “that’s not true” or “I’m not going to let these comparisons control me”
And when you don't have that, you have family comparing you to others
I feel like it's how society functions too because if people never compared themselves they might also not conform or keep themselves in check to be the good sheeple they should be 🐑
Just because they do doessnt mean you have to add to the load.
“We are all individually valuable, once you start loving yourself and accepting how wonderful you are, just you, you wont compare yourself with others negatively. You’ll acknowledge that everyone else's wonderfulness doesn’t take away from your wonderfulness.”
Nah, I'm good
We are not all individually valuable
One thing I have noticed about comparison is that I am very verbose about my problems in life and I will compare myself to people who put out a good image and keep their problems secret. It always gets me; I always forget that the other person is likely to have problems that compare to mine, but since they don't talk publicly about it, I end up feeling like I'm inferior because I do have problems
True...I see others as better than me at times. You aren't alone.
SERIOUSLY, SAME. It’s like I’m self aware abt this but at the same time completely forget when it matters
I have that problem in reverse. :’) I don’t talk about my problems, so when I see people who do, I think about how they’re getting attention just because they decided to “whine about their problems”. I don’t think those are good thoughts but they’re there.
this doesn't stop the comparison though, you are just "modifying" it so that it has a more favourable outcome.
Very timely. My mother just compared me to several people coming over for the holiays and how far I'm behind in life professionally compared to them.... tanking my mental health and reinforcing my core feeling of being a failuire.
We're bad enough critics of ourselves but some parent's also don't help in terms of comparison.
Hang in there. I feel like a lot of people dread the holidays for this exact reason.
My family does that a lot
I had an experience with a cousin and our respective parents
For them the other kid was "the good example", and kept telling us how the other was so much better than us
In fact, I'm way better than him ON CERTAIN ASPECTS! just like he's way beyond my reach on others
I can humiliate him in videogames, academics, sports, manual labors and stuff like that, but he has social skills that i have only when dreaming, he has such an easy way to get job after job and i could only watch with envy, but what he sadly fails to realize is exactly that, while i'm better doing X, he's the best at Y because that's just how we turn out to be, we can envy each other all day, but in the end each of us have our own skillset due to years of different life circumstances
Yup, 90% of our parents' fault but it's up to ourselves to save the remaining 10% when we must stand on our own 2 feet
😢
What about comparing yourself to your past self? I usually find myself comparing myself this way when I feel like I have grown in some way. It helps to compare because then I learn what I have done or am currently doing to grow out of my younger self and avoid the pitfalls I used to fall into.
I fall into the trap myself.
the idea is the same. Comparisons can be healthy, if they help action to happen in your life. If not, there are out of control and must be purged.
I've had to learn the opposite: How to not have the same expectations I had for myself when I was younger compared to now. Different time, different situation, different environment, so sometimes what I was capable of before is now unrealistic
Pretty much the origin story of "Youth is wasted on the young". lol
@kshamwhizzle "now if I could take my 34 year old brain and character and put it in my 24 year old body life would be perfect lol" I think you're now comparing yourself to an ideal version of you. I say it because it happens to me too.
What trips me up most about comparisons is that they're also useful for a third reason-- they help you get a sense for what's normal and what you can reasonably expect from reality.
As an autistic kid, I never used to compare myself to other people. It didn't occur to me that they were similar enough to me to warrant comparison and I had no frame of reference for what was or wasn't normal. I only ever compared myself to myself. But as I got older, I realized that I am in fact a human too and that several of the things I thought were normal actually had medical terms, or were bullshit ideas I picked up from being raised in a family with a cycle of abuse, trauma, and poor boundary setting. Comparing myself to others has become an invaluable tool for making sure I'm setting appropriate boundaries, having reasonable expectations, and not letting myself be gaslit. It was also useful when I was sick for a few years and needed surgery-- instead of getting mad because I wasn't as productive as I knew I could be when I wasn't sick, I could compare myself to other sick people and recalibrate my expectations.
The problem is that once the door to comparison is open, it's SO easy to fall into the other traps. And I think sometimes it can lead us to underestimate ourselves, because we'll assume that if no one else is doing something, we shouldn't expect it from ourselves.
I have a childhood friend who I'm really close with, and I've been trying to get him into self-development content for as long as I can remember, by sharing content like yours sometimes whenever I felt it was relevant. This was because I've always seen a lot of potential in him and thought that this sort of content would help him achieve what he's truly capable of (he's doing pretty well as it is, but I just thought self-improvement content would be a great catalyst). Today he shared me this video of yours and he was telling me that he's been really into your content lately, and how it's helped him immensely in trying to understand his place in the world. It made me really happy and proud as his friend! Thank you so much for doing what you're doing!
good friends!
You are a good friend
W friend.
Good friend.
English is my 2nd language and none of my friends are as close as my levels. They're not into self-improvements so I know that these relationships won't last when we graduate highschool at the end of this month.
I wish I had like-minded friends like yours. Maybe I will find some in university
@kazuki3651 ay, all the best man!
maaan, you're so well spoken and authentic in your talks. I also really enjoy the subjects you choose, and this one hits home especially. Happy holidays and I hope you have a great time!
Having looked into mental health for awhile now, it sucks how a lot of these problems are correlated. Take comparisons for example. A lot people who develop toxic comparisons have this rooted from childhood from bad parenting. And then this ends up affecting your motivation and self esteem. And because all of this sucks, you end up developing depression or anxiety. I love watching these individual topics from Dr. K, it’s just hard to tackle them individually when all of these problems are affected/powered by the other.
Bad parenting how? Looking back, my peers absolutely desolated my self worth the moment I started elementary school. I can't think of anything my parents did to make me have these issues.
As for me, I was raised with pretty good parents (I guess) who never really compared me to my friends or their neighbour's kids when it came to academics. They're content with how I'm doing and will support me fully in what I'm passionate in.
Shit only started when my close friends in class kept getting awards and that made me jealous and start comparing myself to them every single time... I think it probably has to do with my parents not having any expectations on me, which pressured me to try and do so well.
@@commentbot9510 Typically in asian households, this problem stems from parents comparing their kids to other kids of the same age doing significantly better. These kids could be your neighbours, friends or even your relatives. They bring it up almost every time especially during family gatherings.
@@johnbonjov1491 Not just Asian parents.
Be more like your brother, be less like your father, be more like person x, you're just like person y.
Ugh. No. I refuse. Like, thanks mom, for saddling me with + few years to untangle that.
But what if my problem is I'm struggling with comparing myself to my real peers who are my age, not random social media influencers? I get how the latter is unfair, but I don't get how the former is nearly as "unfair" when I went to the same schools as them and knew them for roughly a decade.
I literally got left behind by all of my friends. To the point that I'm not even sure how good of friends we were. But they don't suffer from the emotional and psychological issues that I have. They don't have problems with relationships. They're moving into their own places with their significant others. They go out and have fun doing all kinds of different shit while the only thing I have energy for is video games (which aren't even fun anymore) and anime / UA-cam. They can drink alcohol, or partake in some other drugs, without it being a problem. They're in their mid twenties if not younger than me, and doing way better than in me in every metric...
I simply cannot handle people who are succeeding and getting all of the things that I want, and living the life that I want, but I can't because I'm intrinsically fucked up or something. It makes me want to die.
I might be wrong/making hella assumptions and idk the external circumstances in your life that have led you to where you are but based on your post and the wording you used you seem to believe that your doomed to your current situation and that you're intrinsically fucked. If you do then it's possible that you comparing yourself is how your mind is trying to justify how you feel about yourself, your worth, or about your life in general. In the video dr.k mentioned that comparison (regardless of who it is your comparing yourself to) is our ego trying to confirm/justify/process what we already believe and feel so I think it's fair to be a little cautious in trusting that the comparison being made is TRULY fair. Because again comparison is more about your internal emotions than the external situations.
So maybe a good starting point is learning how to first be aware of and identify what you feel and what causes those feelings then learning how to process those feelings in a healthy way so you don't feel like shit all the time. And obviously I'm not saying that this will fix everything and will lead to you having/doing everything your friends have. But if comparison is what your mind is using to process how you feel then maybe it's better to find actual positive helpful ways to process your emotions that won't leave you feeling like a failure. Healthygamer has the in the feels event that they extended that's all about emotions and processing them so that might be a good place to start. Feel free to ignore this tho if I'm way off the mark. Good luck to you!
your mind is comparing to them because it is telling you that you want those things and you should go get them
so you should find out how to do that, maybe get mental health treatment
The majority of your life circumstances are likely completely different from everyone you compare yourself to. Were you born into the same socioeconomic status with the same privileges that may have given the other people advantages over you? Did/Do you have as strong of a relationship with your family from the start as they did, or is their support network just better than yours since the beginning? What other circumstances of theirs are totally different from yours that may have led to this conclusion? Who did or didn't have circumstances at home impacting their school and social lives? Sure you went to the same schools, but who had the ability to study better and get good grades, perhaps with help from their parents? Were your parents equally educated and able to provide that kind of support? It really seems like the only thing you all have in common is that you went to the same school. From there, everything else is completely different.
I'll use myself as an example. I went to college for music. I discovered in middle school that I had a real talent for it and I came to really love music to the point that I wanted to be a pro. When I got there I realized that despite my talent that I had been praised for, I was woefully behind everyone else and wondered how they could be so great when we were the same age. There were even students who already got professional gigs. It took a while for me to realize that while I had just started my music education in middle school, some of these people were literally born into music, both parents musicians, having professional tutelage from the time they could hold an instrument. It was a simple matter of circumstances being on their side. They had more time to develop their skills and/or talents, their parents had the financial ability to pay for lessons, their parents had the knowledge to teach and reinforce and help them develop the discipline to practice to get that good, parents who knew what it took to get that good. I had none of that. Of course they would be better than me! It took me a lot longer to get through my degree program, but in the end I still did it. Sure, the people I graduated with were years younger than me. In the end though we got the same expensive piece of paper (diploma) and are all professional musicians.
tl;dr The playing field is not and never will be level, but that doesn't mean you can't succeed.
Not having enough energy is an excuse, if you can join them at those fun things. Do it. Even if you really do not feel like it.
And yes i am an introvert. Im giving this advice because i struggle the same way. They wont leave you behind if you make an effort to be there
Hey there. In what way do you feel that your peers (who went to the same school and you knew for a decade) is a "fair" comparison? Why does being from the same school make it fair? What other things there is that makes it fair?
Dr K is right; we tend to not compare if we feel good and chilling, so is it correct to say you feel some level of unhappiness or discontent? What emotion is driving you to make the comparison at all, regardless of whether the comparison is fair?
The thing is when you become better than the ones you compare yourself and you get validation from others it feels so good and your ego gets stroked so hard
Yeah, everyone will take 1000 times a "we're better than the rest playing videogames" than "they're better than us making coffee" comparison
Holy shit yeah or even when it comes to yourself. The fucked up part it feeds the insecurity. It validates your ego that your better but it also does the insecurity. The more you rise the harder your fall. That’s why it’s not enough that you achieve cause the insecurity is still there.
December was a very dark month for me; I’ve been struggling to find a job and simply felt forgotten by the people I considered my friends. But what triggers me the most is that I have two friends who I constantly compare to because we work in the same field and I just feel like a failure for not being able to keep a job for the past 3 years when they even have 3 jobs at the same time.
But what hurt me the most was 2 weeks ago that one of them told me they got an interview into a company I’ve applied in the past. I lost my mind over that information. Of course I was happy for them but the fact that they managed to get an interview when they have so many other things in their lives that they aren’t quite actively looking for another job and meanwhile the ONLY THING I DO EVERY DAY is to apply to jobs and practice my skills to enter a specific industry… I lost my mind, to the point of feeling useless, worthless and not even deserving to exist anymore.
They are 4 years younger than me, I started working slightly earlier and we worked on the same company for a while. But when I got fired back on 2020, they got to stay longer, and even almost was about to get a second job at the same time. Meanwhile I was struggling in all aspects of my life.
I can’t help but to keep comparing myself to them, we basically work on the same thing and yet they are the one who get everything while for me seems like no matter how hard I try, no one notice.
Hey there hope you're doing slightly better 2 months later :)
I know shit's hard but focus on yourself and try to get through one step at a time. Everyone's journey is different some may take a little longer while some may be quicker when it comes to trying to figure things out.
To the younglings who got what you wanted. Maybe they were much more passionate or had skills that the employer was looking for, or it might even be luck. Sometimes reality is just cruel and life treats you unfairly but I hope you keep up the effort because I for one, recognise your perseverance. Trust me when you look back and think of that job you didn't get, you'd be grateful. By then you would have found what you're passionate about and enjoy the job you're currently working in.
Most importantly, don’t beat yourself up. Everyone has different strengths, and people learn at different paces. Your learning journey is ultimately a personal one, and comparing yourself to other people won’t help you learn.
I feel this way very much. I don't know how to get rid of it.
Powerful stuff here. I'm far past middle age and growing up, you had so few people to compare to or with. You could visit neighbor's houses and compare what you had to what they had. You had family you would/could do that with. Now, it's the whole world. What a massive difference.
I struggle with comparison because my entire life, other people compared me to my peers.
I was the ADHD kid, then the depression kid. It was always "Everyone else can do it, why can't you?"
I feel this. It’s just you try but then fail cause something isn’t working for you but get blamed for not getting it. I am just finding out that people don’t know other people are just different and what works for you is more important than the standard.
Thank you for making this. I realized a lot about myself.
I feel like the school system unfortunately supports the system of selfdestructing upward comparison. I don‘t know about schools in other countries, but in Germany teachers will give you the statistics of every test, so you can see, how many students got which grade. I never had the impression that this was meant to be motivational. It was alsways like „you got a C, but 15 others had a B or an A, so you did not do well“ or „you got a C, but only four others got a B or an A, so you were actually oretty good“. We are trained to live in a system, where you are only good when you are better than others. We learn to see people who are better that us as a thread, not an inspiration. I never heard people in my classes say „oh, this student is so good, I want to be like that“. In opposite, people tried to bring good students down by saying stuff like „oh yes but she also does nothing but studying“. I really do think that our upbringing (at least in Germany) plays a huge part in how we compare ourselves to others in our later life.
This is basically the whole character of Tahani in the Good Place. She was the best out of all of them, including Elenor but she could not, for the life of her, stop comparing herself to her successful sister. I loved her because she was so relatable, and captured this thought process so perfectly. 😂
That sounds a lot like me (except I'm not the best at anything, just really good on being pretty good at some things). What is this Good Place that you speak of?
@@delavidaebella it's a comedy show on Netflix that has 4 seasons! Talks about the afterlife in a funny/philosophical way, and the 4 main characters Eleanor, Chidi, Jason, and Tahani are very colorful and go through major changes/character development throughout the show. I highly recommend it!
I found myself relating to Eleanor to an unhealthy degree because I *hate* feeling like people are better than me in any way lol
Man this is my main problem, I like to think I don't care what people think about me but I do. I care a lot. It's the things I can't change mainly that gets me
We are social spiece so we gonna care anyway, don't try to avoid it.
Just don't overthink
Nobody is superior, nobody is inferior, but nobody is equal either. People are simply unique, incomparable. You are you, I am I.
Just because no one is superior, or inferior, doesn't mean they're people are unequal and that doesn't mean that people have to be different or unique, because they don't have to
@@joshuabuchanan1141 I don’t understand what you are trying to say. Can you help me understand?
@oyyinn you look cute 😍 wanna date
@salmanos973 unbelievable.
A timely video. I'm not/can't provide a complete picture but here's my problem. My dream is to become a content creator of a field, and my most severe trigger of sadness is seeing someone younger than me already at where I want to be at maybe a few years.
I know for a truth, that it is not a fair comparison because:
My parents told me this dream was garbage back when I was a kid, and I feel threatened to fulfill their academic demands of me because I've seen how angry they were at me even just by playing games longer than I was supposed too. What if I say I'm going to just do the bare minimum of my studies and spend the rest of my time and energy on this dream that they call a beggar's profession?
Now as an adult with some savings I finally feel like I'm can break those chains and start, because we all only live once. I wish I can have a counter measurement to reduce this subconscious comparison which fucks up my mind for the day so I can focus more energy on improving rather than picking up my corpse.
I'm in the exact same boat I focused very hard on academics so far in my life finished college earlier this year with a 3.9 gpa (now I'm 23) and with the end of college I had time to reflect and evalute what I want.
I also want to be a content creator and also start doing art again but I currently live with my mom (apartments are extremely expensive over here) and I consistently get told my passions are a fantasy and it's a waste trying to pursue them and the only way to survive in life is to climb the corporate ladder and do your 9-5.
So on one side home life becomes a mental barrier and then on the other hand on social media I also tend to compare to people younger and start to think things like "Maybe it's too late for me to start" and "I should of started stuff 3 years ago when I was 20. Even though I know logically 23 is still very young it still is a huge mental battle so I totally understand the struggle.
You only live once. How great would it be to explore all things and be closer to yourself. I hope you're one day free. Hell, you're free now, you're able to mull the decision over. Back then you didn't have enough power for being held back by them to be a choice. You have a choice now, choose freedom.
"You have the right to change your mind/ you can modify your decision when something happens to the original attempt.
Idk if this will help, but the harsh reality of content creation kinda helps you in this case. Whether someone is older or younger is irrelevant, you just need to stand out and deliver content people want. Your lived experiences will help to serve a special tone and flavor in your content; you just gotta let it. If it doesn't work out, it's not because you were too late. It just isn't working out, yknow?
@SereneSoul First and foremost, I am just gonna share my story a little bit more, my case can be different than yours so please feel free to not give a damn if it sounds wrong. I think we can agree on it is tiresome to live for someone else's beliefs.
I am 27 now and also doing art stuff. I started learning from 24 when I quit my job after saving most of my one year salary after working, finding out that my parents' reasoning for hardcore academics was to ensure you have a job that gives you free time to do stuff on your break time, which was the complete opposite for the 2 jobs I tried. I was not as good so just 3.4gpa albeit, from a respectable uni globally.
I've seen people in the same field managing corporate and art simultaneously, while I struggled to even stay awake after commuting back home. I concluded that it may actually be because they are "built different" and I chose to try living while minimising expenses with my parents as much as possible, at the 3rd year mark of learning from scartch I can make money but not I can live independently money.
They also started giving too much pressure and I chose to spill the beans of never wanting a corporate job and say I'm going to move out for a year, abroad, to have some time alone and here I am now in a foreign country sustaining myself with the salary I saved while trying to make the most out of this year.
I am a case of not making it yet 4 years after starting from somewhere similar to you, but still running and going and alive(although bothered by the problem on my first post), and one case cannot really represent anything.
I chose to, hopefully, live the rest of my life that if I fail, I would be the only person to blame and here are the results so far. Hopefully it provides some sort of reference, or just some relief that we're not alone.
Call it bullcrap if you find it absurd and it's totally a fine thing to do, because I'm not you. Don't trust me just because I'm older. Stay strong!
@@vira2936 I don't think your experiences are absurd at all, it is totally valid and I share the belief that if I fail or succeed I want that to be on me and my efforts that I had control over. I think the idea of living abroad for a short time is a great idea! Not only for the ability for you to get away and have alone time but also for the fact that I assume it would expand your perspective (I haven't been to another country). But anyways let's both give it our all and I wish you the best of luck!
"upward comparisons were designed to give us a roadmap to improve our lives ...And downward comparisons were designed to help us develop an emotional coping strength that helps us in the short term"
I love how every emotion, action or thought actually has value and purpose. We just didn't adapt well to new societal environments therefore not valuing from their true function, which means nothing is bad - it's just that we're using it wrong.
This is true comparison will ruined your mental health, my parents always condition my mind to compare myself to others, as a result I been grow shy, insecure and have poor self-esteem. Comparison is a technique used by most parents to motivate you and to control you, until you used to make all you decision in life is based on comparison on what people lifes success would be...
It takes 32 years of my life to break the generational cursed of toxic parenting. I very thankful to my live in partner she is the one the reason Ive open my mind about my true life situation, If she didnt came into my life, Ive been insane now and grow old immature.
I think I understand the message. What I find hard however, is finding a good balance. It is true, comparing yourself to someone with ten or even a hundred times the experience of oneself is not fair. But, I think one must also not lose track of whats possible and what the elite looks like when aiming for greatness. Its just very very tough to combine these two aspects.
Kind of like being humble and proud of yourself
It's a very thin line we can barely see
This helped me learn a lot about myself as someone who compares himself all the time to others which has led me to waste my time on things I am not even interested in just so I can feel like I am better than them at that particular thing to satisfy my ego, thanks a lot doc
I actually sometimes feel like it keeps me from trying to improve certain things... For example, i might think, that im scared of trying to learn something new because I know other people that are wayyy better than me already at it... and i dont really know where to go from here to fix this problem... I think it might be a problem with procrasinating tho im not sure :(
Relatable, also fear of the unknown
Because you are comparing to others! Ther always be someone better.
Compere to yourself from weak ago
We appreciate your hard work and effort. Happy Holidays.
Two types of comparisons:
1. Upward comparison - comparing to someone better then us
2. Downward comparison - comparing to someone worse than us
Why we make comparisons:
1. Upward comparison: to analyze and mimic to do what the other person is doing, finding where we can improve ourselves.
2. Downward comparison: to protect our ego and feel better in the moment.
1. To find out who we are and have a sense of identity. And allow us to form where we are in life and where we want to be.
Who we decide to compare ourselves to:
Someone we consider is in "our league" , someone we see some aspects of his life are similar to ours, like same school, siblings, friends, anything that says me and the other person are in the same bucket.
How comparisons are made:
We take one aspect of a person life and compare it with the same aspect in ours, and not considering all the different variables.
In upward comparisons we pick the best aspect of each person and compare them to our aspects, one person's net worth, another person's physical shape, etc we don't compare all different aspects of the same human with all of our aspects, the exact opposite happens with downward comparisons.
Why are comparisons bad:
1. The comparisons we do are very unfair and based solely on things that are shown to us.
2. Upward comparisons - makes us feel inferior, and make our success seem like a failure in comparison to others thus reducing our motivation.
3. Downward comparisons makes us feel superior and validate us thus prevents us from improving because we feel good enough, also it is only a temporary solution
4. Due to all reasons above we get a false sense of identity that is not connected with reality.
How to stop comparing:
1. Question why your brain decide to choose this person to compare to
2. Ask why is my brain think it's a fair comparison and discover why the comparison isn't complete
3. Notice the comparisons happen not based on critical thinking and are not relational
4. The sense of identity, aka the ego, is the part that makes the comparisons, so in order to stop comparing, focus on the negative emotional state, because it will trigger the ego and start making comparisons
5. Reduce the sense of identity, aka ego
I think in the age of social media it's also almost always a very unfair comparison.
The person you admire for their relationship likely won't publicly post about how they had a petty argument last night or all the small things they dislike about their partner.
The good cook won't post the meal they accidentally burnt or tell you how they added too much salt to the dish.
An artist won't show you all the discardes works, or even how their work looked in the early phases before they polished it up.
Social media is so incredibly curated, so people often appear to be doing a lot better than they actually are, while you yourself don't get the perfect polished version of your life, you have to go through all the steps, all the problems, all the failures that other people don't tell you about, so that evokes a feeling of "These people are all doing so well, what am doing wrong?" when actually they'll often face a lot of similar struggles to what you're going through
1:25 hits home. I started going on walks at my local beach to disconnect for a bit. You know what I see?
A fuckton of happy couples while I'm there alone lmao. The comparison doesn't just stop because it's offline.
This is a problem for me as well. Lately I have came out of my shell and have asked girls out, but everytime its been a flop. My confidence will skyrocket before I approach them, but ultimately after when I get rejected my confidence plummets very low. I dont have any clear answers or advice. So im just gonna say that im here if you wanna talk about it more. We will get through this 🤙
@@PhysicallyDetarded thats the whole point of flirting, to figure out if theyre interested. If they dont put out signals that they are rejection is likely. Talk to them for longer first. Give small compliments, see their reactions etc.
@@PhysicallyDetarded You have taken a massive first step; you miss all shots you don't take! Now it's just a numbers game, eventually you will find a date if you keep trying :)
you a legend KM!
@@generalen517 thank you Generalen, those kind words mean the world to me! I appreciate the encouragement!
it actually is worse irl...
I agree. You have to be yourself. We can all learn from each other.
People don't have to be themselves if they don't want to, some people are horrible and those people are not meant to be themselves
Dr K. This is the cheat code I have been looking for to break my comparison fueled anxiety that sometimes gets to the point of paralysis. Thank you so much for the work you do. I am studying to be a Psychologist myself and you are an inspiration. I hope to one day repay the help you have given me by helping others.
I think that stuff about the ego is huge. Like that applies to a lot of stuff and I'm hoping it'll be useful for me to catch myself trying to validate negative emotions, thinking that's all I can do and even what I _should_ do.
Sometimes we even subconsciously choose to make a comparison with a certain person even though deep inside we know that's unfair only for us to NOT make any changes and keep us in our familiar, comfortable place. Or in other words: we pick the wrong people to compare to just to have an excuse to be stuck. Or in even fewer words: self sabotage.
So true
I think downward comparisons help me cope emotionally whenever I am depressed, I just watch To Catch a Predator on UA-cam. Seeing Preds/Pedos get busted makes me feel better about my life instantly!
Bro😂
“Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish based on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid” - Einstein
this is just a facebook post not an actual quote from einstein
@@qerk5433 true, although it is still a good phrase
Everyone isn't a genius though the rest is true
People don't wanna be genius they just wanna be better than others...
I have a huge problem comparing myself to others. I'm insecure, and I don't want to sound like I'm blaming my mom but as a kid she would compare me to my cousin every single day. Telling me my cousins achievements and asking why I haven't gotten honor roll or why I'm not getting A's like my cousin. I grew to hate my cousin, I want my moms approval but talking my cousin years later, her upbringing wasn't as good as I thought. I stopped hating her but I grew a resentment towards my mom because I still, even to this day, feel like she doesn't approve of me and not just her, I feel like I need to prove myself to everyone so they'll accept me. I still have trouble accepting myself
I wish I had a simple life without any comparison..as a person who has been compared with many I feel as if I'm unworthy
@nafiseh212 you and me both. I'm still extremely insecure but the only thing is that I've been able to catch myself whenever i start comparing
Best of luck to you friend
@@WaxwingSlain
I got used to it.. to be honest with you what really puts me in ease sometimes is that there are plenty of people outside with this problem..
Wish you the best luck and happiness..
My mother constantly delivers these comparisons to my life. She’ll read about some young pilot who juggled two prestigious schools, became doctor on the side and had several kids in the process and then says “See? Easy.” Then she expects me to “get it” and immediately become super-efficient-never-depressed person that crushes life.
I totally get you!
I get the same from my Dad.
No matter what I do there's always someone doing what am doing but better!
I broke free when I realized I'll never be good enough for "his" standards.
Next time she compares you to a guy like that, ask her whether she achieved all those things.
It is something I've had to combat on my own, and honestly I consider myself lucky for even getting that opportunity. It's all thanks to the fact that I've sort of matured while being in this highly competitive/harsh community of creators (hobby level designers). Taking a few months long break was the one thing that really helped me rethink why I kept comparing myself. It's liberating once you find the solution, now the challenge is to keep it up and not go back to those toxic ways of thinking.
Very enlightening video. Thank you! Your explanation about social media really echoed with one of my biggest life lesson opportunity I got. When I was a student in Boston, I had a MIT student in microbiology as roommate in Boston. He was so damn impressive! I compared myself a lot to him as I was ambitious to be the best student possible. But living with him under the same roof revealed to me all sacrifices he had to do in his life that you can't see the rest of the time. He is an expert in one specific domain but it was at the expense of his social life, life skills like cooking, his free time, his emotions etc. So many important things I felt he was missing to experience for just one title in a prestigious school. After this day, I stopped myself comparing to him and I understood that every strong success in one domain comes with sacrifices on other aspect of your life (which you don't see on social media).
The part where you talk about validating your current state or self image by comparing to others and by looking for an explanation just to so your mind rests in peace with the logic that confirms everything that happend.
Sometimes I have thought about it when trying to understand other people´s problems, but strangely enough never though about my own issues in that way.
Thank you!
Dude i just love the mix of scientific perspective and wisdom you’r sharing with us. Thx so much for your work!
Isn’t this guy such a hero? We should get this psycho stuff taught in school. I’m learning so much by watching his video’s!!
as somebody pursuing an art minor having only started making art seriously as a college student, i find comparisons both helpful and hurtful at the same time. when i compare my work to somebody elses from a specific project or assignment i feel much worse. when comparing my art overall to somebody else's overall art, it inspires me to improve to reach that level of mastery.
Alot of people treat life as a never ending rat race a climb to the "top" more money, better job, more power, more influence. This is all classed as successful by many people and thats the issue. Success or failure is whatever you think it is. We get one life to live for sure. Some may be happy and content living in a tent and consider themselves to be very successful if they enjoy life and are at peace then how is that not successful?
Constantly chasing more and more stuff wheb we all die the same we don't take any of it with us.
Be at peace be happy and content with enjoying and loving life as much as u can on your own terms dont compare yourself to people who are not you and don't think like you.
As dr k said once the world and its systems and infrastructure is all designed and out together by other people and we need to break free of this idea of conforming to singular ideas of success and happiness and how we should be educated etc etc. we are all different and all born into a world were we have no say in any of it and we have to survive in our unique ways
Comparison has been a bane to my existence, in a bi-directional way.
I often try to do constructive upward comparisons. When I can't figure out how to do it, that's when things go wrong. Asking for advice is often met with "stop comparing yourself, you're fine". I've come to learn that just asking your friends is not a stable strategy. You gotta ask the coaches and the veterans.
On the flipside. When I am good or (even worse) the best at something, lofty expectations are given to me. I can't ever fall below that bar, or else I'm given crap for being so easily defeated. These were rarely words said I'm my head. Often it's the winner putting me down. After a while those words start to live in my head, and It sucks.
I think I constantly compare up to the point of discouragement. Feasibility bias. Nice to hear someone talk about this the way you do. Thanks
I don’t really use social media, though. Outside of UA-cam, if you can classify it that.
wow 14:40 is really what I have been doing, comparing my worst attributes to the best of many different people
I feel like this is something we all know instinctually. At the same time, it's genuinely hard to escape the prodigious amount of competition in everything in the modern world (dating, job market, social media, etc) so the common guy will be stuck in a loophole of comparing himself to others unless he makes an actual effort to detach himself from these things
How does one detach himself/herself from these things if you don't mind me asking?
@@jdanjdan Actively look at how our circumstances aren't the other person's.
Often people have been doing something longer, have had more support for it (small loan of a milion dollars, the snark in me says), and have more talent for it.
Your background, skills and abilities are incomparably different.
E.g. I, as a mildly autistic kid, had to learn the ins and outs of something as socially complex as diplomacy and behavior in a wide variety of circles (put a bunch of politicans and CEOs into a "party" and try not to bleed out of boredom. Bonus points for catching the 3-layer veiled threats and insults).
It's zero wonder I had massive self esteem issues, and my academics suffered because I spent so much time on constructing complex systems of how people (or worse, politicians) work.
So I ended up with a wierd set of exhausting people skills and half-baked science skills, the first of which make people baffled as to why I struggle with the latter.
You've got your own stories, I'm sure. Parents didn't teach, lack of rescources, time, unaware of it, ilness, genetic lottery.
The only person you can conpare yourself to is yourself- and even that's iffy, because you can get injuries and grow old, and your skills profile will change.
I was supposed to curl up, I was supposed to back down, I was supposed to fade, evaporate into the background.... I was supposed to never be nothing, but I made it to something, I knew I could do it, I'll prove it!
stop! i swear every video you upload applies to my current situation and everything is all i needed to hear
so many of his videos are really helping me in life
My brain always talked like: "If i am smart/good enough to be capable of doing it, why aren't you?" (i had like -10 self esteem)
That was like the default comparison in my mind.
There is also an important factor that should be discussed, is how to handle circumstances when everyone you talk to compares YOU to someone else. Aka. your relatives example.. That kind of social norm would further worsen your tendency for comparison, not just the ones Ego driven.
This video came on my recommended at such a perfect time. Especially within the last few years, comparison has been an area where I've struggled. Since birth, I've had mild CP which effects my left arm and leg. Growing up, particularly around 16 and onward, it was extremely easy for me to notice how other girls were gaining their independence whereas my journey was slower. Until recently, I finally had an epiphany: Why am I comparing myself to able-bodied young women? Which has since morphed into, why should I compare myself at all? I've realized that (however cliche it might sound) that everyone is truly on their own path. It has been comforting to me to remember that the "right" and "wrong" timing doesn't really exist. Accepting that this is the way my life looks, getting rid of bitterness and comparison, resting and not striving... Have really helped me look at comparison in a completely different way. Especially towards independence. I have caught myself comparing either up or down, and it's wild the effect that both have. I'm not usually one who posts comments often, but I hoped that my experience with comparison given my life situation might encourage others.
I really appreciate this video. The vast majority of my life I’ve compared myself to other people and really hurt myself using drugs, alcohol, negative self talk, starvation of love, etc to really anchor in self hatred. I’m trying so hard to Love me and allow grace and forgive for myself for treating me so poorly. It’s not easy, but it is doable.
I developed body image issues from comparison.
nah you're just fat
Understand that anyone would. What’s exceptional is depicted as normal because of the content we consume
@@digital_hoboz nope. Infact, im better than 95% of the population.
@@abdallahhesham87 bro ur comparing right under the vid about not doing that
@@Collin0 u missed the point of the video then
2 seconds in, I can already tell this video exactly about what I've been saying for years. Comparing yourself to others never ends well for you.
It is definitely true when you are not feeling great that comparisons come in. Comparing was never something I did, but it has happened on a few occasions the last years. They usually pass when I think of the ways their situation is different to mine.
I compare myself to the people in my real life, not random internet strangers. And I don’t use social media other than UA-cam. These comparisons aren’t addicting, I don’t seek them out, they just appear as I’m playing with teammates. It’s still distressing. I’ve never been distressed about internet people in the way I am about real people I know. Are these comparisons the ones that lead to improvement?
That's not a bad thing
Oh god, you got to the "people asking me whaty job is" part, and I was immediately like "Hell yes that's how I feel!" I've never had any job I think of as "worthy of respect," even though I'd never pass that kind of judgement on anyone else. Retail worker, delivery driver...there've only been 2 jobs I wasn't embarrassed to tell anyone. And I realize that's silly because again, if someone told ME they worked those jobs, I wouldn't think any differently about them at all. I suppose that could be because we're on the same level, but it's 1 am and I'm not sure I have the energy to go that deep. 😛
Again, the timing of these videos is incredible :O
Thanks, Dr K, for this video - me and my friend applied to the same super selective university and recently we found out the results - he was accepted, I was rejected. It hurt a lot but I'm wishing him a good time in that university & moving on to other good choices for myself!
Literally had a self talk this morning about how comparison thoughts ruin my mood so fast and how useless they are.
Why I'm comparing myself and get all stressed up unnecessarily is when my family members compare me to others, picking people they know similar to my age or amount siblings. Some lousy friends would do that too. My way to be less stressful is to NOT GIVASHEET about their words but it will still hurt because I'm an HSP. sheeeeet~
I love when Dr. K incorporates elements of nonduality in his content :)
For me the only valuable comparison is to my past self. Comparing yourself to others is an unwinnable game. It doesn't matter where you are in life, if you're a better person than you were a year ago you're doing good. 🙂
And it’s ok if someones not! the fact that they are still here today shows real strength as well :)
I found this ESPECIALLY. I would always compare myself to others and others expectations and it was not healthy for my mental. I found this out pretty fast (like 4 months) so I was able to get out of the state I was heading towards.
It's so hard to avoid going on online when you are a content creator or an artist. You have to check what's hot what's new to make a new content and you will have to "mingle" or check up on other content creators/artists to build connection or learn what they've done right to improve yourself. Most days I just fall into a hole of comparison that hurts me more than motivates or inspires me. I've asked so many people how they deal with this issue and a lot of their answers (i.e. "just stop comparing yourself you are already great as you are!" to ""you draw better than me!") don't really click with me. But that kind of makes sense now because everyone's different and I need to ask myself why like you said more than asking others for the specific solutions they have for themselves
You are a gem Dr K, thankyou for all that you do to help people, you have helped me in so many ways.
Love this. I’ve always loved that quite “comparison is the thief of joy.” It really does effect your mental health. That’s part of the reason why I’m barely on social media and it’s actually easy for me cause I was never big on social media anyway.
When I make fair comparisons, I still feel worse. Even if I don't compare at all, I still feel like shit. Thanks boss. Helpful.
I hope you see this Healthy gamer team. I am having lots of guilt about leaving people hurt to get out of situation , or not knowing that my actions would hurt them. Have taken decisions in haste that has effected people. I feel hurt for not recognising that they were going through their own trouble when I retaliated for the trouble they caused me. There is so many things that keeps going through my head and want to be rid of it. Because that's the path I go through whenever I feel bad.
Please make a video on it. How to handle the guilt and shame.
I can be perfectly happy, content and be chilling and still suddenly compare myself to someone I'm talking to or see in the media. There's no way to deal with the emotion first because it's produced by the automatic comparison. But I guess that's where the fair comparison comes in. It's just so incredibly difficult to stay fair.
I don't compare myself to others. Other's compare me to others.
Heh 😅true
Omg the "bucket" thing lol, I'll tell people, "thanks I got it at Walmart," and watch their face change lol. I do shop at Walmart a lot, but for me it's a good way to see what they think lol
Same. Sometimes I find really nice clothes at Walmart and people would ask me where I bought it from and their faces immediately change when I say where it's from. It's as if they don't believe me.
@@tvu24 for me it's less of them believing me, it's more that they whole heartedly do and I'm suddenly asigned a particular value. It bothered me a lot a lot in junior high and high school but it's just kinda eventually taught me the, idk, shallowness? of others.
And yeah! Sometimes I find a pretty good gem at Walmart and get so excited to buy it! I have to take care of my clothes because I never learned to sew or patch up things so I still have stuff from years ago that I really love!
It’s obvious to anyone who has spent enough time on social media that comparison within the ego is detrimental to one’s happiness. It is a cheap replacement for self-improvement and self-worth. We see people “better” than us and hope to be like them, only to feel incapable of having what others achieve. Or we witness those “worse” than ourselves in an attempt to feel good in the moment. I experience this especially when I’m depressed and fall into an almost addictive cycle of comparison where I find short bursts of gratification only to experience long periods of dread and insecurity afterwards. The best way to combat this cycle is to notice when your mind is making comparisons and to shoot them down immediately. Understand that we are all unique beings interacting within an obscure world and comparison is unfair and unhelpful. The issue with dismantling a comparative complex in an increasingly comparative society, however, is that much of our reward systems are built on a foundation of ego. So in pursuit of non-comparison, my subconscious’ justification for this dismantlement is the reward of judging others in their inability to not compare. This is an ironic paradox that I am privy of falling into. I judge myself for judging others, and then in turn judge others who do the same, and then I judge myself again for judging them for judging. In order to break this cycle, I must find a different reward system. To truly remove unhealthy comparison from my mind I must change the justification. Comparison is unhealthy and depressing. Comparison causes me pain. Me feeling pain is bad because I am a decent soul; worthy of happiness. So it seems the core of my complex is my lack of love for myself. I must love myself and truly want what’s best for me in order to circumvent my pain. Once this is achieved, my systems will follow suit and adjust in service to my health, not fleeting pleasure. I have crafted this rationalization. Now, I must strive for habitual nature instead.
We are social creatures. I crave connection and sociability.
The root of this compulsion should be to experience joy,
not to feel better than others or to make others feel better.
I must imagine a state where I am all alone and yet I still find peace.
Once I achieve this, I can begin rebuilding a social circle of people who make me happy. This is where it gets tricky. How do you decide who to trust and be friends with independent of comparison? I can’t be friends with anyone, unless I wish to be betrayed. Don’t hate people for their differences, but find what kind of ideology and behavior to be most supportive.
Rationality over empiricism: Worldly belief based in evidence over intuition
Loyalty: Friends to immoral enemies are no friends at all
Trust: do they use you? Do they lie to you? What promises are not kept?
Open-mindedness: Those who judge expression/identity are doomed to judge you also
Morality: Most things are forgivable, some things are not
Comfortability: Do they warm your soul?
I believe downward comparisions can be more than a coping mechanism. When you are learning a subject it might help to determine and recap how far you've come and what mistakes you made.
Thanks for your time!
I think comparing myself to other people has been really useful, overall. I did learn around highschool that it was not good to compare myself in my achievements compared to others, because lets say in sports, the vast majority that do really well only do well because over 90% of the other people barely try. Same is true for education.
So instead, I take whatever I am really interested in and as im growing in that skill I compare myself to all the other people who are also trying to put in maximum effort. I take this same approach to many things. Ofc this only works well because I take into consideration peoples different physical attributes and different lifestyles and upbringing, which all play massive moles in terms of anyone's success. People work really well in teams because they have other people on their side they can compare themselves to. People train harder and run faster in athletics when they have other people around to compete against and compare themselves to. You ever see someone about to give up and then a bunch of people start cheering them on or someone gets close to beating them and they have a burst of motivation to push through? That affect rarely happens in isolation to yourself, comparison can bring inspiration.
I guess what I mean to say is I don't think its a good thing to NEVER compare yourself to other people, just don't make it the exclusive way you judge your own worth or success, there will also always be others out there that can do things you cannot do. How would I know the quality of something I make without comparing it to the other great works out there? How would I know the value of all those great works had I not attempted to make some, thing great myself?
All that said, the best person to COMPETE against is yourself, only you are a good reference point for what 100% effort looks like and where you were before you improved.
I suppose it is also very helpful to have the ability to NOT compare yourself to others on command. You gotta have a separation between the two extremes every once in a while.
EDIT: I don't know if I find downward comparisons useful at all. I kinda don't do it anymore, at least not actively. I never liked others downplaying my (or others) problems because someone somewhere in the world had it worse and did more.
I don’t care about not comparing, I want to know what I can do to not keep making the mistakes that make me regret and harm those around me. I don’t care about my own well being, I just want to not hurt those around me, and it seems everything I do to try and make my life more stable only hurts those around me.t that’s where comparison comes in for me, I look back on my past and have nothing but regret, and look ahead and see nothing but struggles. Comparing is all that’s kept me going, knowing that there are those worse off and I have to keep trying.
it was actually helpful, you are truly a genius to be able to articulate so well. i will manifest these ideas you've bestowed on me.
An Issue I have with this or at least in understanding is sure none of us are under the same circumstances, but a lot of us are competing over the same/similar resources. Money, Attention, Attraction, influence, and in some areas success. Sure the Comparisons tend to be unfair, but lesson that taught allot is "life isn't fair". Life doesn't care if they were given a bad start or squandered a good one, if enough people are better and/or show up soon at carving out a spot in a niche that they considered to be a part of they won't find success in said niche. I'm just putting this out here to challenge my perceptions.
Wow I haven't watched in a while, the guru skit really caught me off guard lol
This was probably one of the best videos I've seen from you so far. I could relate way too well to this and hearing it was like a wake up call. Thank you for this.
People also need to realize that everyone has a life as complicated and in depth as yourself. No matter how much you may think that's not the case it is. No matter how much you follow someone, unless you live with them there are so many aspects about their life you will never know or understand. It's literally impossible to know everything going on with them. The saying about walking in someone else's shoes is no joke. Unless you were there for the start of their life you will never fully understand them so to compare yourself to such a degree with them is silly!
i feel like im just being honest with myself when i compare with others who are better than me. and it just feels wrong to lie to myself about my place in the world and status and appearance and stuff. i’m just being honest with myself and trying to stay realistic, i guess
External comparisons is what I struggle with. Family and friends comparing me with other family members or other people, both positive and negative comparison... it just unnerves me because some times it feels like people don't actually want you to be yourself.
I think this video has really focus on comparison around skills and with different people.
My real issue is to compare myself with people on my friend groups, or compare around vital milestone in which we are in, or personality traits (I wanna be talkative as them, or flirt like them…). It feels like this type of comparison will require a different approach. A video on that could be really useful.
I've waited over 16 months for something like this video to come out, thank you so much Dr. K ❤️
it helps when i compare my old self to the me now, i leaned new thing and everyday i try to learn a new thing to improve myself and most importantly be better than my old self
My issue is comparing myself to others is always with my friends. The only time its with someone I don't know or barely know its when they'd be in the same "league". Like when my brother tells me a friend of his just graduated, studied games design and makes really good stuff...I still havent graduated though I should've and I can't make anything despite almost being done with school. Hell almost all my game design classes are over and I know almost the same amount as when I went in. And that's just a person I dont know. Lord knows how many comparisons I make to my friends, and my roommate especially...
Quit social medias, don't watch influencers on yt, find something simple to do what you enjoy and get better with it.
Tadam, I gave you a recipe to get joy from everyday struggles.
Hey can you please give me some advice on my crippling jealousy?
Why does it matter how many views a video gets so important? Also if you do something well or great someone says here is an 11 year old girl doing the same dance and has 11 million views!😱 Social media does
Minimize Us as individuals and it’s becomes a fight to NOT feel insignificant.
I’ve never compared to non humans, I’m high a functioning autistic, and my understanding of people isn’t intuitive, it’s observational, It’s not a lack of empathy, if I see someone crying in the side of the road I tear up and want to ask them what’s wrong. I compare my miseries and trials to that of others I see around me and try to put it into perspective, that my suffering is not so great, but lately even though I can tell myself that, it doesn’t seem to work, and I just keep sinking lower.
Wow, 19:15, the part about comparing yourself to your ex's new guys was exactly me last week. It was the catalyst to finally unfollowing her because I recognized that it's bad for me to be making those comparisons and it felt like an invasion of privacy as though I were spying on her new life.
Throwing this out there as video starts, yes comparison can be damaging, especially through the internet and social media.
For my own situation, I dumped Facebook after I saw three of my friends get married within a week. It made me so envious, I felt physically sick, like I wanted to throw up, so I decided I couldn't do it anymore. Now, I use FB strictly for the marketplace and private chat rooms with friends.
Other social media however such as tumblr I still follow because it follows people who are far enough removed from my own life so it's easier to remember that this stuff isn't real and even if it is it has little to no effect on my life.
+1 insight. Thank you Dr.K!