The Comparison Game

I'm fully aware that I'm not Usher (and good luck getting the song out of your head now), but I do have a little confession to make. This is just something that's been occupying my thoughts pretty much 24/7 lately. I'm not entirely sure why, but that usually means I need to write about it to help myself work through the issue.

And since I'm trying out the become-a-more-open-and-honest-blogger thing, I thought I'd share.

***

So there’s this game I play. I’ve been playing it for several years actually. I play it with lots of people—people I know, people I don’t know IRL, celebrities, bloggers I can’t get enough of, etc.

But I don’t enjoy this game at all. Because I always lose. Ready for the name of this why-the-eff-would-you-ever-play-this-game game?

It’s the Comparison Game.

Anyone else out there guilty of participating in this win-less, makes-you-feel-like-a-total-loser game?

For those of you unfamiliar with the way the game works, here are the rules:

1. Find someone (doesn’t matter if you know the person or not) whose life you’re convinced is better than yours. (Doesn’t matter if it is or not. While playing the Comparison Game, your judgment will be as clouded as the Oklahoma sky in tornado season.)

2. Constantly obsess over how much better this person’s life is than yours. Common phrases thought or uttered in this step include:

• So-and-so is skinnier than I am.
•  So-and-so is richer than I am.
• So-and-so has more blog/Twitter/social media in general followers than I do.
• So-and-so is happier than I am.

3.     Lose the game.

It’s that simple.

But I’m over this game. I don’t wanna play anymore. See, I know how blessed I am. I know I have nothing to complain about. I often feel like the kid whose mom tells her “You want me to give you something to cry about?” after she starts crying only because she knows she’s in trouble. (I may or may not have heard this phrase many times growing up.)

I have no legitimate reasons to be unhappy with my life. And it’s not that I’m unhappy per se. I just can’t seem to keep from comparing myself to others. Because someone always has it better, right?

But someone always has it worse too. And that’s something I’d do well to remember next time I think:

I wish I could afford to save $300 a month.
I wish my hair would grow as fast as hers does.
I wish my blog had over 200 followers.
I wish I could run 13 miles.

Because the truth is:

I can’t afford to save $300 a month right now—but I can pay my bills and occasionally enjoy a night out with friends or a little somethin-somethin for myself.

My hair doesn’t define me. Although my (lack of) hair is a major insecurity for me, I have to accept the fact that my hair just doesn't grow like it used to.

My blog may never have over 200 followers, or even 20. But my blog isn’t my life, and I don’t blog for the fame and fortune that comes from being a bona fide blogger. I blog for me. (If bloggers with 200-plus followers don’t actually gain fame and fortune, I’d rather not know the truth.)

I can’t run 13 miles because I’ve never tried hard enough. I give the running thing a go three or four times a year, but I never stick with it for longer than a month. If I want to be able to run a half marathon without being carted off on a stretcher, I've got to make myself stick with it for once.

With those realizations fresh in my mind, I’ve got to figure out how to avoid the siren song of this cursed Comparison Game.

I’ve never been in a 12-step program, but I’ve watched enough episodes of Intervention to know that the first step is admitting I have a problem.

But all I know about the remaining 11 steps is that I need to prepare for a lot of self-examination. Why do I feel inferior in these areas? Why are these things so important to me? Why am I not satisfied with giving my best and accepting where that takes me?

I know we’re all different and that that’s what makes the world go round. I know God made me the way I am for a specific purpose. And maybe once I figure out what that specific purpose is I’ll stop basing my self-worth on how I measure up against others.

10:53

I know it's only Tuesday, but I've had a tough week already. When I'm upset/frustrated/stressed/scared I like to write. So I turned again to my awesome book of 642 Things to Write About and found this appropriate prompt:

 

Your last cry.

Last night, actually.

Because:

Work has been super busy the last couple weeks, and after eight months, I sometimes feel like I'm still proving myself. 

I agreed to teach three more Zumba classes, bringing my grand total up to seven classes a week.

My tooth that needs a root canal hurts pretty much all the time, but I don't have an extra thousand bucks lying around to get it fixed.

I have no idea what to do about a situation with my dad.

All this and more weighed heavily on me last night until—at 10:53—I just got so overwhelmed the tears were inevitable.

And I’m glad I finally let them out. It’s been a long time since I let myself sob like that.

After my therapeutic cry—when my pillow was soaked, my lips looked like they had just been injected with Botox, and I was so drained I felt like I had run five miles—I felt a little better.

Today was still a rough day—it’s not like my stresses disappeared with the tearstains—but a good chat with my friend Shawna lifted my spirits, the prospect of having some much-needed time with my bestie this weekend did wonders, and a story my mom told me of the generosity of the people in my hometown put things into perspective.

I may shed some tears tonight too—but they’ll be tears of thankfulness and love for those who help me make it through to the other side of difficult times.

Please Don't Look at Me Differently...

...but I just remembered I’m kinda famous.

I’m not Kid President famous. Or Grumpy Cat famous. Or even Harlem Shake famous (you’re not getting a video of this because I will never get why it’s a thing).

But my voice is floating around the interwebs!

Before I was an underpaid-and-overworked ballin’ conceptual editor, I was a part-time copyeditor who moonlighted as an audio book narrator.

Impressive, eh?

This was actually a pretty natural career move for me, seeing as how I enjoyed a short stint as a radio broadcaster several years back.

Okay, I wasn’t so much a broadcaster as a middle-schooler who could barely report the school news because she and her partner in crime were laughing too hard at everything and nothing.

My dear friend Hannah and I were in the Gifted & Talented program in school (reppin’ for the nerds!), which really just meant that we participated in academic meets (and by participated I mean I stood there and hoped my shaking hands didn’t accidentally push the buzzer), got to work in the Christmas gift shop, and reported riveting school news for a local radio station once a month.

We’d practice our lines on the fifteen-minute drive to the station, but no matter how uneventful the news was (lunch menu, honor roll students, blah blah blah), we always managed to crack up just a few seconds in. A funny name or a single look could keep us doubled over in laughter for a good three minutes.

And this happened no fewer than seven times every time we went.

Somehow we always managed to collect ourselves and get through the should-have-been-a-five-

minute-broadcast-but-always-turned-into-a-half-hour-ordeal. But the station manager (I don’t actually know what his title was) and our sponsor were always highly annoyed by our inability to say three words without uproarious laughter.

Side note: Hannah and I just have the giggles effect on each other. Get us together and say the name “Beverly,” and we’ll laugh for days. It’s an inside joke that will never get old.

So it’s probably for the best that Hannah wasn’t in the booth with me while I was recording the guide to cooking with arthritis and the children’s book about getting a new mommy. I never would have made it through.

I got promoted to full time after just a couple months as a narrator (holler!), so I only lent my vocal talents to eight books.

And lucky for you guys, I’ve got the Audible link with all the books right here. So you can check out some samples of my work and praise the Lord that wonder why I didn’t pursue this as a career.

https://mobile.audible.com/search.htm?type=search&cache=1&narrator=Ashley+Luckett&page=1

Good stuff, huh?

P.S. Check out this completely ridiculous sweet testimonial of my work from the Audio Book Store:

http://www.theaudiobookstore.com/narrators/ashley-luckett/

I especially like the parts about me being one of their “more popular narrators” (uh…yeah, right) and Ashley lending “their considerable talents to literary works” (I’m a girl; the pronoun you’re looking for is “her”).