My actress friend tells me that the purpose of most industry parties is to see where you are in the food chain.
Yikes. That sound equally as exhausting as acting itself.
And yet, we all fall prey to this behavior. It’s not a performer thing, it’s a person thing. Playing the comparison game is one of the things human beings do best. We spend a lot of our time comparing our capacities and careers to other people, wishing ours was different.
But what we don’t realize is, we’re only envying people’s presumed happiness. We’re only comparing ourselves with people’s idealized facsimiles of themselves. And we have no idea what’s going on inside of others.
Therefore, anything we say about ourselves in relation to them will be unfair, biased and solely focused on a place outside of ourselves.
And so, in the same way that our doctor tells us to flood ourselves with fluids when we’re sick, we need to let gratitude crowd out envy. Here are a few strategies that helped me.
Instead of feeling the pain caused by comparison, we use thankfulness as a clinical intervention for hopelessness.
Instead of beating ourselves up about how much farther along the journey someone else is, we take an inventory of how far we’ve come.
Instead of resenting people for receiving more recognition than we feel their work deserves, we send them a note with heartfelt congratulations.
Instead of cursing the unfairness about whose dream gets more attention, we show an appreciation for the fact that we even have room to dream in the first place.
Not all in the same day. This practice of letting gratitude crowd out envy is not an easy one to effect.
It requires deep imagination, optimism and trust.
Basically, a total reframing of something that comes natural to us.
Good luck.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What if all the comparing could be replaced with connecting?
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Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
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