Why We Need to Stop Competing With Each Other
Why We Need to Stop Competing With Each Other | Outfit Details
Dress: SheIn // Necklace: Made By Mary // Necklace: Kendra Scott // Earrings: Kendra Scott // Bracelet: Kendra Scott // Purse: Amazon // Shoes: Target
Why We Need to Stop Competing With Each Other | The Problem
The last few months, I feel like I have been seeing a lot of the same thing. Within this community, in my personal life and other places on the internet. Too many people are competing with each other. It used to be that everyone was openly competing with each other. Now I feel like it is more subtle. Someone shares a story, or opens up about an experience. And instead of support or praise or help, the response tends to be "my experience was worse" or "if you think that is bad, you should hear...", or my absolute favorite, "in my day".
I am not saying that we can't share experiences with one another. I feel like that is part of the human experience. We share and others share in return. We bond over shared experiences and pain. But when it becomes a competition, people no longer want to share. They turn inward and keep their pain to themselves.
Why We Need to Stop Competing With Each Other | How To Change Ourselves
I think part of the problem is that once someone starts to point out how their life is worse than ours, we start to get defensive. I know I do. Other people only know a small part of what we share. Unless they are inside of our heads and living our lives every day, they don't know exactly what is going on. So we feel we are being attacked. Before we can expect others to change how the respond to us, we need to change how we respond to others.
There are things in my own life that I don't talk about. For my own privacy and because some of it I am just not ready to share. There is pain that I don't publicize. I can't expect other people to read my mind or know about those experiences if I haven't told them. And they have had their own pain and experiences that I know nothing about. Something I have been doing lately is reminding myself that the person I am talking to doesn't know the entire story. If the situation is appropriate, I fill them in on what is going on. If not, I let it go and move on.
Why We Need to Stop Competing With Each Other | How To Help Others
So we can't change other people. It's not actually possible. But we can give them more information. We can provide an insight into what is happening in our world, or what has happened in the past. When someone starts to compare their life to ours, we can ask what is happening in their life. We can stop thinking about ourselves and ask what their pain is. Very often they are trying to tell us something. We can listen. In doing so, we are helping them see that their pain is valid. We are showing them that someone cares and understands. And then maybe, just maybe, they will stop competing.