Comparison is often such a vulgar and unnecessary thing. Many people, throughout life, continue to habitually compare themselves with others. Those “others” are often very standard, ordinary, bourgeois, and dull. People compare their home, livelihood, lifestyle, and overall life, with others. Comparison invites imitation; imitation reinforces “second-handedness” and conformity to formulated, standardized “set patterns.” Fear often emanates from comparison… “Will I be as successful as them?” “Am I too different?” Comparison often paves the way to jealousy and superficial showing-off and boasting. (Some people, for instance, go ga-ga, trying to have the hugest and “most pretty” home; this is so childish and superficial.) Taunting another may often involve comparison. Comparison thrives in the world of the opposites (where differences are often magnified). Comparison can make the mind dull; it can be what nourishes mental sorrow.
The wise mind can exist where comparison is seen for what it is and where it is put in its appropriate place (where its limited aspects are seen). Such a mind can be of a profound joy where comparison does not often needlessly enter. When the mind compares, the mind is comparison (within the limited corridor of the opposites). Uniqueness and spontaneous insight usually do not ever depend upon comparison. Comparison and contrasting correlations can be very useful at times, but the mind need not depend upon them as deeply as it usually does. Perceiving directly, without employing comparison, is often very significant and profound.
No need to compare! Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog 
agree. we distort who we are when we compare.
Yes. Habitual comparison is itself distortion. Then distortion affects the world.
Absolutely! 🙏
People would be much better off accepting the grass is not greener on the other side – and certainly not as lovely as in your photo. 🙂
Yes. Things at a distance can appear to be better than what is near if one was educated wrongly. 🙂
Your last paragraph speaks Truth…liking your perspectives.
Maybe it does. Maybe not. 🙂
well, I think so.
Coming from a country where (regrettably) a big part of our national identity is about “not wanting to lose out to others”, I really hope to see fewer people comparing with one another for the sake of doing so. Thanks for the inspiring read!
Thank you, Minwei! 🙂 When will we ever figure out that this is one, little globe, that we are all one family, and that there really are no “others”?!
I agree, Tom! And ‘Social media’ has ramped up this comparison to an extreme unhealthy level that is hard to break free from.
Yes, Sheila, social media contributes a lot to this. Systems are designed by corporations to “get people to behave in certain ways.” What is shoveled to people: “This is what everyone is doing and if you are not just like them something must be ‘wrong’ with you.”
This is why I dislike “naming” things. Labels are a recipe for comparison. They lead to the artificial us/them categorization that will be the end of the human species someday.
Yes, Eilene, “us/them.” We were taught to see the differences between us and them… not so much the oneness, without mentally fabricated boundaries and borders. Boundaries and borders create (and actually are) limited mental constructs that can (and do) separate us. War and indifference to the environment are often the sad results.
Agreed!
There are some benefits of growing older, among them the ability to march to the beat of your own drum, because when you’re young, you so afraid to be different from your peers. How wonderful to finally get a chance to “break out” and be an individualist in later years.
Complete true!!