How many times in your life have you thought, “nobody gets what I’m going through.” “No one has had it worse.” “No one’s self-esteem has ever been this low,” or “No one has hurt this bad”?
In this silly little comparison game that we like to play, we find ourselves even comparing our life’s challenges, and we take this comparison in one of two directions. Either we downplay our problems thinking that what we are going through doesn’t qualify for us to be sad or angry or defeated. Or we tell ourselves that life has dumped on us more than anyone else and that no one’s problems are as bad as what we are going through.
I don’t know what it is like to lose a child, or a parent, or the love of my life. Heavens, both sets of my grandparents are still alive. I don’t know what it’s like to be diagnosed with cancer. I don’t know what it is like to have your house burn down. There are plenty of life’s challenges that I cannot directly relate to, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t know heartache and fear. It doesn’t mean that I haven’t missed someone so badly that I thought I couldn’t go on. It doesn’t mean that we can’t connect.
I know what it is like to look in the mirror and think I am the ugliest thing on the planet. I know what it is like to feel like an absolute failure. I know what it is like to be dirt poor. I know what it is like to have the doctor give me a life-changing diagnosis. I know what it is like to feel alone, to feel like you don’t have a friend in the world. I know what it is like to feel hopeless.
We have to stop comparing our lives and even comparing our struggles and start connecting. A mother who has a child with a terminal diagnosis could easily look at me and say “Honey, divorce and autism and scoliosis are a cake walk compared to what I am going through.” But, what if we look at it differently. What if we connect over that common feeling of the doctor telling you what you don’t want to hear? What if we connect over being mother’s, and women, and being in a situation that is beyond our control?
This is a place to connect, to get rid of the lonely, and to find meaning. I encourage you to stop comparing in every aspect of your life. Own your emotions. Cry it out, get angry, and then get up and do some good. Start a walk in memory of your child, dare to go on a date and begin to mend your broken heart, acquire a new skill so you can land that job.
With hope, action, and connection we can get through and we can achieve anything.
