judgement days

why do humans have a tendency to compare themselves to each other?
i mean, i haven't caught the cats comparing themselves to each other, and i don't believe that hamsters spend much of their time on earth thinking about how they compare to their fellow hamsters... they don't judge themselves, or each other, they just Are. hamsters, or cats, or whatever creature god decided they were going to be this lifetime... us humans however...

this morning i found myself comparing myself to ex {and deeming myself hopeless, cos Still Alone and Sometimes Still Upset Because I'm Not With My {supposed} Soul Mate Anymore} and my mum {and stamped myself lazy, cos i'm not involved in loads of clubs, haven't single-handedly rearranged the garden and haven't been to a funeral to emotionally support a friend} and this particular blogger {and gave up hope of ever being able to have as many followers/draw pictures as nicely as she can/write Witty & Fluffy bits of text to go along with aforementioned pictures...}. i came to the conclusion that i might as well give up...


what's the point in comparing yourself to someone who's had a different life to yours? who's a different age, or has a totally different way of looking at life? who wants different things from their life? ex has moved on, indeed cos he was ready so much longer before i was/am/ever will be. and that's fine. he's dealing with his feelings in a totally different way than i do/did/ever have done. and that's fine. it doesn't mean that he's doing things right and i'm not.

where did we learn to do this? at which point did we figure out that Comparing is Useful? was it at the time when we learnt from our parents? we compared ourselves to them because it was of vital importance to learn Life Skills... to teachers and the group that we lived in, were a part of, cos of our survival instinct. it was rather important to have this skill, as a child growing up. however, along the way, our skill {looking at how others do stuff} has become a burden. we still need to kind of fit in, and we do, often very subtly, unless we make a concious decision to stick out and live with the consequences of that, but on the whole we still implement the things we learnt as a child - look around you to see if you're doing the right things... which is fine, as long as we don't judge ourselves.

and that's where we start tripping up...
at some point long our journey Judgement became part of looking at ourselves.
luckily it can be undone.
being aware of when we do it {to ourselves, to others, to certain situations} is a start. accepting that it's part of us. and to learn that is has no power over us unless we let it... {which, i admit, is the hardest part...}