Muslim Heroes of the Holocaust
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Twenty minutes of scrolling can leave you feeling smaller than when you started. Here are six ways to stop measuring your life against everyone else’s.
You open your phone for one second to check the time. Twenty minutes later, you’ve seen a friend’s renovated kitchen, a cousin’s family trip up north and a woman you went to school with who apparently runs a business, has six children, and bakes her own bread.
You put the phone down feeling smaller than when you picked it up.
The Mishna teaches, “Jealousy, desire and the pursuit of honor remove a person from the world” (Ethics of the Fathers, 4:21). You stop paying attention to your own life because you’re too busy watching someone else’s.
Here are six ways to stop comparing your life to someone else’s and get back to living your own.
Comparison usually has a pattern. For some people, it’s a certain app. For others, it’s one particular friend, a family celebration, or the class WhatsApp group where every mother seems to have already sent the costume.
Pay attention to the moments when you start feeling “less than.” Then make a few small changes. Mute certain accounts, limit scrolling to a set time of day, and before a family event, remind yourself what you’re grateful for. That way, you walk in with some awareness of what you already have, rather than immediately looking at what everyone else has.
The medieval commentator Ibn Ezra asks a question about the commandment “Do not covet” (Exodus 20:14). How can the Torah command a feeling? How can anyone be told not to want something?
He answers with a parable. A simple villager sees a beautiful princess. He might admire her, but he never dreams of marrying her. She’s so far out of his league that the idea is as unthinkable as sprouting wings and flying.
Wanting works the same way. We crave what feels like it could have been ours. But once we truly understand that what someone else has was given to them by God, for their life and their particular mission, it stops feeling like it was meant for us. The craving begins to quiet down. Her kitchen was given to her. Yours was given to you, cracked tile and all.
There’s one comparison worth making: you versus the person you were a year ago.
Am I a little more patient than I was last winter? Did I handle this morning’s chaos better than I would have a few months ago? This kind of comparison pushes you to grow while leaving your self-worth intact. It also helps you spot progress that’s easy to miss. Most of us have come further than we give ourselves credit for.
Sometimes envy points to something real.
I once worked with a woman who felt a sharp pang every time a friend posted about her evening classes. She was embarrassed by it. As we talked, it came out that she had left a degree program 20 years earlier to get married, and the wish to finish it had stayed with her ever since.
Her friend’s posts had stirred up an old dream.
Ask yourself what the feeling might be telling you about something you want. Then take one small step toward it. Sign up for the class. Look up the program. Start, in your own way and at your own pace.
This one is hard, but it works. When you feel jealous of someone, quietly wish them well. “May she enjoy her new home in good health.” “May his business keep growing.”
At first, it may feel forced. Do it anyway. It’s difficult to keep resenting someone when you’re actively wishing them well. It also reminds us that God’s blessings aren’t a pie with a limited number of slices.
“Who is rich? One who is happy with his portion” (Ethics of the Fathers, 4:1).
Your portion belongs to you alone: your marriage, your children, your work and your particular challenges. They were given to you because you are the one meant to live this life.
So put the phone down for a minute. Look around the room you’re actually sitting in: the same kitchen, the same children, the laundry on the chair.
Every piece of it was chosen for you, the blessings and the frustrations alike, because it’s exactly what you need for the life only you can live. May you see your portion for what it truly is: a gift with your name on it.
