Unless it’s a ‘thing’, you should never compare. In the ‘person, place, or thing categorization – people should never be put in neat little boxes (no matter how beautiful the box). You cannot put them in cement either… they will insist on moving and changing and growing. Don’t you? How would you like to be in a box, taken out when it pleased whomever, but seen as a static one-dimensional person? Minimally I think you would be irritated.
The Father has created everyone of us to be special and unique – doppelgangers aside he breaks the mold which each of us. Isn’t that incredible and fantastic! I view this as He loves each of us individually so much that He enjoys our special-ness. Do we? Do you celebrate your own uniqueness as well as honoring others? Do you see your own changes, growth and allow others the same privilege?
With those two thoughts, do you compare you with (fill in the blank)? And how do you fare? Better than… worse… equal? And you’ve walked in their shoes and experienced all they have experienced so you can easily compare you to them? Yes? Of course not! From a different concept – you’ve never made a mistake, have you? You’ve not (or have) done or said something that you shouldn’t have, did you? You are always in complete control – yes? Again – of course not! Then why keep others in a isolated, enclosed box?
The bottom line is that the moment you start comparing is the moment that you lose as well as the other person. Even if by some unbelievable intervention and you did know and appreciate everything the other person has gone through… you still would be wrong in comparing. I have discovered that each time I meet a person that ‘I Know’ and keep them in the ‘condition’ they were in the last time I was with them that they sometimes do act or speak differently than I expected. I’d much rather meet them on ‘new turf’ and make a new discovery about them and about our relationship. I know that I’m not always the same from moment to next meeting – expecting them to be won’t work either.
We really should stop wasting our time comparing and boxing. Enjoy the new discoveries in them and in yourself. Anything static will atrophy and that is never a pleasant occurrence. Growth may not always be pleasant, but it definitely in never boring. Life is meant to be lived. It is not to be boxed… for another time.
