“When we compare ourselves to one another, we will always feel inadequate or resentful of others.”

-Bonnie L. Oscarson

It’s a common thing for us to go to church, meetings, parties, or watch well-put-together people on TV dressed in their “Sunday best”, smiling and talking and visiting, sharing their thoughts to probing questions, interacting with others professionally, confidently, sounding like they know what they’re doing, and to walk away with a very false impression of everyone else but ourselves.

We see the relative perfection of others’ lives and know quite intimately our own glaring imperfections. We see what others seem to be, but know with laser-like precision all our own hidden parts.

But think about what we know others don’t know about our inner demons and personal struggles, our private insecurities, challenging circumstances, painful histories, and hidden weaknesses.

We all have them. Even though we are only clearly aware of our own, they exist in the darkened shadows of everyone’s else’s lives as well, shadowed from our external line-of-sight. But our personal character and personality issues walk with dirty shoes all over the carpeted living rooms of our own lives, glaringly obvious to our look in the proverbial mirror.

Under such circumstances, we can feel like we just don’t measure up, like our church lives are facades, all fictionalized story, an unworthy play acted on a stage where everyone else is real and authentically out of our league.

We would be mistaken to assume too much.

What’s Behind Your Door?

Behind every door are some set of challenges hardly anyone else knows about. Doors are locked, not only to keep strangers out, but often to keep our secrets in. Not that everyone should be wearing their sins and insecurities on their sleeves, but it does present a false impression that can leave us feeling like we’re the only broken china on the shelf.

Behind every door are some combination of insecurities, sins and temptations, addictions and anxieties, mistakes and regrets and one or another disorder. Some live with chronic pain and others live with failing memories. Some struggle under the weight of depression and others feel trapped in their anxiety. Some are unhappy with their relationships and others are unhappy with themselves.

Where one person struggles with debilitating perfectionism, another struggles with loneliness. While one is filled with regret, another is crippled by fear. Some are struggling with testimonies or temptations and others are struggling to know God has forgiven their past sins. Some are taking care of sick parents while others are sick themselves and don’t know how to tell their families just how sick they are.

We’re all mixes of pride and humility, selfishness and selflessness, kindness and resentment, generosity and greed, compassion and judgment, forgiveness and grudges. The problem is that we usually don’t see the pride and selfishness, anger and greed in the hearts or minds of others. But we sure see and feel our own! And so we’re stuck making the only comparisons possible—false comparisons.

Life is Messy

The point I’m trying to make is just to say, welcome to life! Life is dirty and messy, difficult and challenging. It hurts and sometimes hurts quite a bit and for way too long. But make no mistake about it; we are all broken, just broken in different places and in different ways and to different degrees. Some breaks are on the surface and some are under the skin, in places only God can see.

But we’re all flawed and incomplete. The question is whether we are giving ourselves the grace we would give others with the same challenges.

Probably not.

My best guess is that most of us tend to be kinder with others’ weaknesses than our own. But Christ atoned, bled and was resurrected for all of us, not just for all of them!  

Thomas S. Monson once told the story of a woman who thought poorly of her neighbor’s dirty laundry drying on a clothesline until she realized she was looking at the laundry through the dirty lens of her own unwashed windows.

That lesson has powerful application inwardly as well. Too often we evaluate ourselves as we look inward through a foggy mirror. It comes across more like harsh judgment than a careful evaluation of a blend of strengths and weaknesses. We see ourselves through dirty windows, missing all the parts that are fresh and clean.

Broken Tiles

The author of the book Happiness is a Serious Problem wrote about what he called the Broken Tile Syndrome, where we walk into a kitchen where there’s a broken tile and despite all the tiles that are perfectly spaced and beautifully designed, our eyes gravitate to the one that’s broken. I think we tend to do that with our broken parts as well.

Our focus is drawn to what’s cracked and marred, to what doesn’t fit, the moral smudge on the sleeve, the character dirt on the face. We see the worst in ourselves and overlook all that’s good and beautiful and praiseworthy. We see ourselves through dirty windows and foggy mirrors as we stare too long at all our broken parts.

So as we obey the injunction to judge others softly, kindly, generously, patiently and humbly, we would do well to start applying those principles to ourselves as well. Imagine your beloved child sitting on your lap complaining about how terrible she is. What would you say to her? How would you convince your little one that she is a wonderful, beautiful gift, loved and worthy of that love with so much more going for her than her perceived flaws?

Say that to yourself. You are God’s child. As you would not harshly judge your own child, I believe He does not want us harshly judging His.

That’s not to say that you pretend character flaws are just peachy keen. It doesn’t mean you sugar coat your own words spoken deceitfully to yourself, winking disingenuously at your pretended wonderfulness.

But it does mean seeing the whole of yourself, not just the mud and grime between your moral toes. It means having grace as you see yourself clearly, recognizing we are all part of a fallen world, aiming at something more and leaning on Someone more.

Which You is You?

In a way, you are also your own child. The Right-Now-You is father to the Next-Year-You. The Today-You is mother to the Tomorrow-You. How you treat yourself now, the grace you extend, the kindness and patience you show, the forgiveness you hold in your heart will set the stage for how the Next-You will develop and evolve and grow … or shrink.

So give yourself some slack and do the best you can, even if your best produces lots of broken tiles. See yourself for the entirety of who you are, and let’s stop defining ourselves by our broken parts. And while we’re at it, let’s also stop comparing ourselves to the images of who others seem to be while dressed in their Sunday best, smiling and hugging and photographing the wonderful lives they post on social media.

We all go home and live out our lives behind doors that hide complicated lives in complicated relationships in a complicated world. So be good to others and be good to yourself.

I’m convinced that God would not want it any other way.

Photo courtesy of pixabay