Disclaimer: the writer is aware that the views expressed here are not universal truths. The writer is unable to exhaust thoughts in one article.
Parents, teachers, children, leaders, researchers and even comedians compare. Don’t think that you and I are left behind. No way.
It is a universal fact that human beings are uniquely different but at the same time share several similarities. We somehow find ourselves comparing our dressing, eating, bodies, lives with that of others.
Some comparison is considered positive like when you compare where you are at the moment to where you were in the past. Of course this is relative. You also consider how fortunate you are compared to other people. I have a bone to pick with this supposed good comparison. It not only implies that the other person may not be that blessed but also downplays our challenges. ‘Heri wewe mtoto wako ako na autism, kuna mwingine mtoto wake alikufa alipozaliwa.’ Kuna kaukweli hapo but then again. And then there are those unfair comparisons you make when you wonder why you are living from hand to mouth yet Mark Zuckerberg is earning millions on a daily.
The Oxford Dictionary defines comparison as a consideration of the similarities or dissimilarities between two things or two people. I wrote that we somehow find ourselves comparing. That statement isn’t entirely accurate. A social psychologist by the name of Leon Festinger explained that comparisons are an in born quality of human nature. This has been better explained in Social Comparison Theory.
There are different forms of comparisons. There is Upward comparison whereby you compare with something/someone seemingly better and Downward comparison when you compare to who or what seem worse.
Theodore Roosevelt said, ‘Comparison is the thief of Joy’ while Mark Twain said that ‘comparison is the death of joy’. Before deciding if either was accurate or not, it is good to evaluate our reasons for making comparisons in the first place. Basing on the Social Comparison theory, the need to self-evaluate pushes us to make comparisons. Through comparison, we get to know about our abilities, personality, successes and gain clarity when our own self-evaluation is unclear (you know, like when you go to the movies for the first time, you behave according to how you view other ‘more experienced’ people behaving).
Comparison is used as a benchmark to gauge performance. Due to our fundamental wish to do better, we tend to compare. Mind you, we not only compare our lives. We compare religions, economies, populations, governments, cultures etc. We might be doing this so that we can know where we lie and just basically rate our performance. For instance, many countries during this covid-19 period have been comparing infection, death and survival rates plus measures being implemented to flatten the curve and reduce infection rates such as mask wearing behaviour, lockdowns, preparedness of frontline workers and availability of PPEs between different countries and continents.
A bunch of factors play a part in determining how often or how much you’ll compare. You are more likely to compare when there is a lot of similarity and the number of people you’re comparing to is smaller. We compare depending on individual differences, considering mind-sets, personality.
Comparison contributes to competitiveness ( in the case of participants in a math contest) and empathy ( when I compare my life to that of a street child, I wonder what it like to live in their shoes or walk in their feet).
Depending on whether it is upward or downward comparison, the effects of comparison vary. We love analysing. Is it possible to analyse with just one side of the story? Can we live without comparisons? Is it possible to compare in a healthy or unhealthy manner? I shall look into these questions and much more in the next part of this article.
What do you think about comparison?
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