filed in Daily Life
Comparison is the Death of Joy*
A Rabbi (who had survived two bouts of cancer) described the scenario of congregants seeking his counsel during their times of despair, and inevitably they would ask, “why me?” So he wanted to know if during the good times, they also asked “why me.” Intrinsic to the “why me” question is comparison. “Why not you,” he would say. I’d never thought of it in those terms before.
* quote by Mark Twain. Cartoon for The New Yorker by Danny Shanahan
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I love that cartoon (and Twain’s quote). So much of our misery is brought on by comnparing ourselves to someone else (and on social media, the other lives are typically edited to show their best anyway).
I actually DO (sometimes!) remember the “why me” when wonderful things happen to me (usually the form taken is “wow, I am so lucky”), which really invokes feelings of gratitude.
Good on you, Petra. I’m convinced – gratitude is everything.
I always like this quote from Montesquieu too:
“If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.”
Perfect quote. I’m going to use that.