Comparing Ourselves

“If a woman understood that ‘what I create has nothing to do with what anybody else is creating’, then she wouldn’t be so afraid of what others are doing” Abraham

Do you have a tendency to compare yourself to others to see if you match up? I do. When the money isn’t coming in or the project isn’t working right, it’s easy to slide into blaming ourselves for the outcome. But if we’ve given our very best, that’s all we can do. We need to “let go and let God” as I believe they say in AA.

Sometimes there are many other factors at play in the “success” or “failure” of a project or in the outcome of our interactions with others. Byron Katie has a very succinct question that cuts right to the chase on this. I love it. We can use it for almost any situation or difficulty. The question is:

“Whose business am I in - my own, someone else’s or God’s (i.e. the unknown)”.

So if our work isn’t going well, or we’re having difficulty with our boss, partner or friend we can use this question to determine whether we’re trying to control a person or situation that we just can’t or should not be attempting to control.

This realization can give us an enormous sense of relief. It can also free up a tremendous amount of energy that we’ve previously been using on things that are not in our power to control.

c 2008 Ellen Besso