THE THIEF OF YOUR JOY
President Teddy Roosevelt once famously called comparison “the thief of joy,” and boy was he right. There’s a natural inclination each of us have to take what we’ve been given and hold it up next to others, often, in reality, to our own detriment. Maybe for you, it’s your ability or your intellect. Maybe it’s your possessions or your position. Maybe it’s your situation or your circumstances. If you’re here today as someone who recognizes that your joy’s been stolen, then I’d encourage you to look at comparison as a primary suspect.
Allowing our joy to be hijacked is a problem because joy is a critical component of high performance and a competitive advantage for those who have it. If we want to be our best in any important area of life, then we need to recognize that more joy only helps us on our journey. We need to recognize it as a valuable resource, and because of that, we need to do what we can to protect it.
You’d think we would naturally want to protect something that we recognize is so important. But the truth is, most of us welcome this thief of joy into our experiences without giving it a second thought. We compare ourselves constantly to the people around us, and in doing so allow what should be an unwelcome visitor right on in to rob us of this precious and valuable resource. Why do we do that?
The simplest explanation for why we so often spend our time comparing is because comparing very subtly provides us with an easy way out. It comes so naturally because as humans, we aren’t hardwired for greatness. We’re hardwired, first and foremost, for survival. If there’s a path of least resistance, our minds are trained to spotlight it and celebrate it as the best available option. Comparing is our mind’s clever little way of encouraging us to avoid the hard work that becoming our best requires us to do.
Stop and consider what comparison creates in us when we look around and recognize that we’re better, in one area or another, than the people around us. Comparison takes our joy and replaces it with a sense of arrogance and entitlement. It justifies that we don’t need to get better, because we’re already superior to everyone else.
On the other hand, stop and consider what comparison creates in us when we look around and recognize that we’re worse, in one area or another, than the people around us. Comparison takes our joy and replaces it, not with a sense of arrogance or entitlement, but instead with a sense of inferiority or embarrassment. It justifies that there’s no use in getting better, because we don’t have what it takes and probably never will
Either way, it's not just our joy that comparison diminishes. It's also our commitment to improvement. And, it's important to see today, that those are not two independent occurrences. Joy and improvement are directly connected to each other. The more joy you cultivate, the more willing to get better you become, and the more you step into that important improvement work, the more joy you cultivate. That correlation highlights why joy is a competitive advantage, and validates that the best formula for reaching your potential is to forget about comparing yourself to everyone else, and to focus instead on becoming the very best you you can be.
You do that by elevating your awareness, and recognizing more readily when that temptation to start comparing shows up. Instead of inviting that thief into your experience and allowing it to steal your joy, choose a healthier, more productive approach that recognizes joy as a valuable resource, and then gives it the protection it deserves.
