Stop Comparing Yourself to Other People

We all do it.  Think back to that first year of graduate school.  You probably took the introductory classes alongside the other entering students, and you spent time wondering things.  Which one of you is the smartest?  Which one of you has the chance to be a star?  Who in this room will have an easy time getting a fellowship?  A job?  Maybe you even asked yourself, “Who in this room is going to get what I want before I do?  And how can I stop them?”

Academia is often about competition.  Sure, we think of ourselves as colleagues working toward common goals.  In grad school, we all want to learn about this field that has fascinated us.  As faculty, we all want to teach well and create a vibrant educational setting for our students.  In our professional organizations and at our regional and national conferences, we want to further our knowledge about the questions and theories that fuel our academic lives.  But we can’t always stay colleagues working together.  Jobs are scarce.  Journals publish only so many articles each issue, and university presses produce a particular number of monographs only.  We compete, which means we compare ourselves to our colleagues often.

I wonder if we do it too often and in detrimental ways.  In my first post for Prof. Hacker, I argued that we should share the successful grant applications and tenure documents that we all have to create.  But our review of those documents should only go so far.  It’s one thing to use those documents to help us think about issues of formatting and presentation.  But it’s quite another to think to ourselves, “She is so much smarter than I am.”  Or, “He has accomplished more in five years than I could do in ten.”

When your mind starts forming those thoughts, stop it!  That may be easier said than done, but it is vitally necessary.  It’s very easy to convince yourself that you just can’t do what those around you do.  Those other students enrolled in that seminar with you understand things so easily, while you have to do the required reading three, four, or five times.  Those other faculty members in your department spend half the time preparing for class that you do, but students like them so much more.  The thoughts begin.  Then, they grow.  Before you know it, you’ve created a hierarchy in your head, and you’re edging closer and closer to the bottom of it.

Or maybe it’s gone the other way.  You wonder how that guy down the hall gets asked to give conference keynotes when he’s an idiot and you’re so much smarter.  And how did that woman win a teaching award?  She couldn’t teach an honors student how to find her or his way out of a paper bag!  Whether our comparisons make us look better or worse than those around us, we’re not being fair to them or, more importantly perhaps, to ourselves.

Here’s my point:  Things might look one way on the surface, but we rarely know what’s happening underneath.  Maybe someone has it less easy than we think.  Maybe they really do have it easy, but it’s a pretty good bet that there are other factors at play in their life that are not at play in yours.  Therefore, the comparisons and subsequent judgments we make might often do nothing more than make us feel bad about ourselves or others.  And what is the point of that?

Someone may make a lot more money than you make, but they may also have more debt or more demands on their income.  Someone may appear to be noticeably fatter or thinner than you are, but that says less about health than we might want to think.  I could easily go on.  Suffice it to say that things are rarely as simple as they might initially appear.  Oh, sure, there are some people out there who actually do have it easier than you do.  And some who have it harder.  A majority of time, each person you meet can handle some things better than you and some things worse.  So, essentially, get over it.

Something else has come to mind as I’ve been writing this entry and getting feedback from my last post on not allowing productivity tips to stress you out.  You may read Amy’s post on DevonThink and WordPress, which certainly has me thinking, or Julie’s amazingly-detailed thoughts on web browsers and feel like perhaps you should play with how you write and browse.  We all hope our enthusiasm is infectious and that what we write inspires you to experiment.  But if what you’ve been doing for years really works for you, it’s not a bad thing to hold change at bay.

If you want to alter aspects of your life, then work toward that.  If there are parts of your life that feel satisfying and successful, however you define those words, then don’t feel like you have to change just because of something someone else said or did, whether positive, negative, or neutral.  Ultimately, you just might be best judge of what is best for you.

(The photo for this entry is from Flickr user Yogi and is licensed through Creative Commons.)