I'm being robbed...

If a robber walked into your house and started taking all the precious pieces of your home, one would not just sit there and let it happen right? You would stop them and the injustice that is being done to you, call the police, grab a weapon, any means necessary to prevent it from happening while you are right there in plain sight, right!?

Well, I’m letting myself be robbed. I’m straight-up letting a thief into my life to take the things he wants at his will. This thief knows me well, he knows what he wants and how to get it from me, and I realize I am doing nothing to stop him.

The thief has a name, it is Comparison, and he is continually taking my joy, my self-worth, the little victories, and life milestones from me. 

“Comparison is the thief of joy” – Theodore Roosevelt.

If you are a Pinterest person chances are you probably have this quote in some decorative hipster font pinned to your “inspirational quotes” board cause you thought it was neat one night while laying in bed scrolling through Pinterest. I’ll be the first to admit that I fall under that category of human being. But I started to really think about it today for whatever reason. In too many areas of my life I am letting comparison rob me of the full joy I could be getting out of life. Comparing my relationship to other relationships around me, does nothing but rob me of the energy I could put towards loving my man even better, and places it in the hands of the thief, who uses that energy negatively. Comparing my grades to those around me robs me of my self-worth. I’m not and never have been the top of my class, school is something I have to work hard at to maintain average achievements. So when I compare myself to my friends who have an easy time academically I am instantly invalidated. Whatever my little accomplishments were became for-not because theirs are “better.” I often find myself thinking “ I can not compare to her in this subject so why even try?” Comparing where I am at in life to where older friends are or where older relatives are robs me of the here and now, takes away from whatever stage of life I’m in at the moment because I’m constantly looking at the totally different place in life they are in and saying “life won’t be good until I get there.” Then I miss out on all the great things that come with the here and now.

This world is built on comparison, the empire of contest based reality shows. Are you a better singer, builder, painter, ect. than the person next to you. Don’t even get me started on the blatant comparison game played in politics. In athletics, who can run the fastest, kick the farthest, jump the highest. Comparing one player to another, they have entire news shows dedicated to people comparing players to each other.

Because it is so woven into the fabric of our society I can’t promise to “never let comparison effect me again from this point forward” as much as I would like to. But I am going to take steps to stop this robbery in action. I’m going to get my weapon ready and call on the best cop I know of. My weapon is the Bible and my cop is Jesus. When I start to compare my life to those around me I am going to remind myself God has made me perfectly in his image the way I am suppose to be. The bible says “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)

So if you are being robbed by this thief too, I encourage you to take this tiny step with me and see if we can prevent ourselves from being robbed of some of life’s little joys.