Comparisons, Complaints, and Enlightenment

Comparisons are irresistible but they are also odious, insidious and very often our self-torture of choice. Comparisons can also be demeaning, not only to those comparing but to those being compared. This is true whether the comparison be about recognition, fame, achievement, or failures, illness, and suffering.

Today, I have been giving great thought to this seeming need of we humans. Why is it that we are always guilty in some way at some time of coveting our neighbors husband, figure, clothes, income, or career. What about our envy or jealousy over others achievements, awards, recognition and fame? Sadly what about when we compare our own suffering against another's because we feel we have suffered more or that another has no right to complain?

Generally it is often only one person whose own blessings or pain has the ability to push our buttons of raging insecurity; we really don't care if most of the world has more then we have or is more ill then we are, we only care that "he/she" has it and the attention that comes with it and NOT us. Often the subject of our hostility is not personally known to us, though the life he/she lives is in print. Other times, they are someone very close to us. Secretly we "stalk" social networks, magazines, newspapers accumulating evidence against their good fortune.. Whether this person be a stranger or your best friend, you insist on measuring your life, success, bank account, and self worth against hers.

Obviously, I could write a book on coveting, jealousy, envy, illness and making oneself miserable with comparison unless I was vaguely familiar with this sin against one's own authenticity. Therefore, for just a moment, follow me in reading one of my favorite poems; a clever, funny spiteful little ode by Clive James:

'The Book of my Enemy Has Been Remaindered'
"The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am pleased.
In vast quantities it has been remaindered
Like a van-load of counterfeit that has been seized
And sits in piles in a police warehouse,
My enemy's much-prized effort sits in piles
In the kind of bookshop where remaindering occurs.
Great, square stacks of rejected books and, between them, aisles
One passes down reflecting on life's vanities,
Pausing to remember all those thoughtful reviews
Lavished to no avail upon one's enemy's book --
For behold, here is that book
Among these ranks and banks of duds,
These ponderous and seemingly irreducible cairns
Of complete stiffs.


The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I rejoice.
It has gone with bowed head like a defeated legion
Beneath the yoke.
What avail him now his awards and prizes,
The praise expended upon his meticulous technique,
His individual new voice?
Knocked into the middle of next week
His brainchild now consorts with the bad buys
The sinker, clinkers, dogs and dregs,
The Edsels of the world of moveable type,
The bummers that no amount of hype could shift,
The unbudgeable turkeys.


Yea, his slim volume with its understated wrapper
Bathes in the blare of the brightly jacketed Hitler's War Machine,
His unmistakably individual new voice
Shares the same scrapyard with a forlorn skyscraper
Of The Kung-Fu Cookbook,
His honesty, proclaimed by himself and believed by others,
His renowned abhorrence of all posturing and pretense,
Is there with Per twee's Promenades and Pierrots--
One Hundred Years of Seaside Entertainment,
And (oh, this above all) his sensibility,
His sensibility and its hair-like filaments,
His delicate, quivering sensibility is now as one
With Barbara Windsor's Book of Boobs,
A volume graced by the descriptive rubric
"My boobs will give everyone hours of fun".


Soon now a book of mine could be remaindered also,
Though not to the monumental extent
In which the chastisement of remaindering has been meted out
To the book of my enemy,
Since in the case of my own book it will be due
To a miscalculated print run, a marketing error--
Nothing to do with merit.
But just supposing that such an event should hold
Some slight element of sadness, it will be offset
By the memory of this sweet moment.
Chill the champagne and polish the crystal goblets!
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am glad."


Feelings of Comparison are never good as this does not lead one of us to enlightenment. We are adults . We all should be bigger than this, shouldn't we? Hmmm..

Well, even if we are not, comparisons hurt each of us in profound ways. They undermine our confidence, shut down our flow of creative energy, shor sircuit our access to a higher Power, deplete our self esteem, suck the life force from our marrow and hinder healing, and prevent u s from giving fully of ourselves as the Creator intended.
Comparisons destroy what is Sacred within. Therefore, instead of comparing yourself to another , why not just take a wet leather strap and beat yourself with it? Or beat the one you are comparing yourself with... It's easier to recover from physical abuse then self inflicted or emotionally psychic brutality.

The Blessings your "nemesis" , friend or neighbor now enjoys can also be yours as soon as you are REALLY ready to receive with an open heart all good fortune created just for you. Conversely, it can also aid you in your own healing if you admit that each person's suffering is equal to our own... as each person's suffering is totally individual.

Therefore, dear reader, bless the people you compare yourself too. Bless them for their happiness, their success and their failures and fears. Once we are each able to do this, we will truly begin to experience the abundance of real life and love.

Blessed be.