April 25, 2022
Editor: Amy Halperin
Artist: Julia Pignatella
This morning I stood next to the window in Ross as I waited for my much needed coffee to kick start the day. My eyes mindlessly wander, gazing around at the people around me and zooming in and out of the double doors of the building. They eventually fell on a girl approaching the barista for her drink and food, and I instantly felt a pang of jealousy.
Her outfit is fit-and-flare jeans with an adorable white sweater, and here I am wearing a baggy, mismatched sweatset.
Her hair falls into this perfect sea of beach-waves, and here I am wearing a low bun as a last attempt to tame my frizz.
Her food order consists of healthy egg-white bites, and here I am waiting for my gooey chocolate croissant.
The thoughts fizzled when I received my order and walked out of Ross. However, as I now sit on my bed and reflect on my day, my mind travels back to this scene; the envy I once felt transforms into shame. I had never seen this girl before — and might never again, considering how big this school is. I knew nothing about her personal life, her goals, her hobbies, her struggles. Yet I immediately tried to find every way in which she was “better” than me, as if comparing myself to someone was part of my typical morning routine. And I think that although we shouldn’t have these thoughts, most of us do — and we have since a young age.
In elementary school, unnecessary comparison would be something as simple as seeing someone who had a “cooler” Webkinz toy than you or determining who brought the best snack to class. In high school, it would be who committed to the most academic college and who had the prettiest prom dress. No matter the age, it seems almost innate that we constantly look toward others and see what we don’t have or what we should have. When we enter this state of comparison, all rational thoughts leave our minds. We don’t stop to remember that our parents were working too hard to go to the grocery store that day and get us a good snack, nor do we instantly recall that there’s more to a college decision than simply the institution’s academic rank. Our mind simply gets lost in the empty competition, forcing us to overlook our personal connections and backstories. As a result, we forget how appreciative we should be to simply have something so expressive of ourselves.
I hated my name for the majority of my childhood. I cringed at the way it rolled off people’s tongues, how high-pitched it sounded, and the lack of unique nicknames that could be derived from it. As I grew up, I realized that I constantly paired this disgust with the longing I felt for others’ names, how theirs were pronounced, and their special nicknames. I never stopped to think about how my name is a direct symbol of my heritage, as I was named after my great-uncle Carl. My name is a way to express not only my entire being, but also part of my familial history — yet the only thing that surfaced my mind was how others’ names trumped.
We must force ourselves to start appreciating the uniqueness of the things in our lives, and how they are special to ourselves and our journeys of life. Sure, someone else may have the same object or experience as you, but no one shares the same connection to them as you. Everyone has different backgrounds and contexts for every entity in their life that has allowed them to reach this point of owning something. If we train our minds to focus on this and not whose is better, we will be able to better appreciate our belongings and focus on how they connect to our own selves. As we continue to discipline ourselves to break our comparing habits, we will ultimately alleviate ourselves from the pain that results. So, next time you find yourself measuring yourself against the girl who was simply trying to enjoy her Starbucks order, remember that everything about yourself has its own personal reason for existing in that moment — tangible or intangible, it is a representation of you.