“Comparison is the thief of joy.” It’s an old adage but its longevity may be due, not only to its truth, but also at least in part to its broad applicability. Most people make comparisons of something they feel they lack to something of someone else’s that they feel is in abundance. Or, they may compare their perceived misfortune to someone else’s perceived good fortune. In the therapeutic space, it is common for people to compare the converse which is usually expressed as something akin to: “I shouldn’t feel so bad about this; lots of people have it much worse than me.”
While these types of comparisons may be helpful for identifying things for which to be grateful, when it comes to comparisons that are intended to reduce the severity of one’s own stressors or burdens, they are, inherently, pointless.
As I noted in a previous musing, reality is subjective. A shared experience will affect each witness differently. Some slightly, others markedly. Some people’s lived experiences cause them to be well adept at handling specific adversities, like how a firefighter may feel calm when faced with a grease fire whereas a software engineer may not. But the software engineer may react calmly to a computer virus where the firefighter may panic.
There is also the degree to which someone can experience a particular emotion, or even the threshold of their emotional experience. I will preface the proceeding metaphor by admitting that it is a simplified explanation for complex experiences, but such simplification allows for people to first grasp the concept before expanding on it.
In order to help people understand this, I use the metaphor of stretching a rubber band. Let’s say you have a brand-new rubber band. When you stretch it to its limit, it reaches 40cm. You pulling it is the emotion provoking experience, and the 40cm is the limit of its emotional capacity. Every time the rubber band is stretched, it gradually expands more and more. Now, think of a child who loses a pet and experiences grief for the first time. Losing the pet stretched their capacity for grief to 40cm – the most they have ever experienced. Now, let’s say, some years later, that child loses a parent. Assuming the child survived and recovered from the experience, and assuming that the grief for the parent was greater than that for the pet, their emotional capacity has been stretched even further – say 50cm.
Now, let’s assume that every emotion-provoking experience has its own rubber band. Your capacity to grieve loved ones may be 50cm. Your capacity for panic during unfamiliar situations may be 30cm. You capacity for anger during unfair situations may be 80cm. The same concept can even be applied to experiences like your capacity to tolerate financial challenges, your capacity to engage with dangerous people, or your capacity to survive in war-torn countries.
Generally speaking, people’s rubber bands stretch with experience and remain intact assuming that the people survive and recover from these experiences. You may say that you “shouldn’t” be so worried about your financial hardships because there are people who can’t even afford a home. You may say that you “shouldn’t” be so stressed about your work deadlines when there are people who cannot work at all. You may say that you “shouldn’t” be so concerned with giving your family the vacation they deserve when there are people wondering how they will feed their kids. What you are actually doing is minimizing and supressing stressors in your life that are affecting you tremendously, and likely making yourself believe that you are not strong enough to handle the burden.
As I said above, these comparisons can be helpful in gaining perspective for gratitude, but they should not be used to minimize your own trials and tribulations. It is possible to say that you are grateful for the fact you can afford your home and you can be stressed by the fact that affording others things is challenging. You can be grateful for the fact that you are able to work and be stressed by the fact that you have a tight deadline. You can be grateful for the fact that you can feed your kids regularly and be disappointed by not being able to take them on vacation.
Gratitude can work, and this is a helpful way to do it.
Okay, getting back to the rubber band metaphor, when people tell me things like this and I have explained the rubber band metaphor, I always say to them that just because your rubber band is stretched to a capacity of 40cm for grief and someone else’s could be stretched to 80cm, that is still the limit of your emotional capacity! If there were some way to measure felt experience, both people would be measuring the same degree of grief because it is their maximum. The extent of grief that someone may feel when they can’t take their kids on vacation could feel exactly the same as another person who cannot feed their kids every day. The stretch may not be the same, but the limit is. Whether it’s 40cm or 80cm, both bands are stretched as far as they can go!
Someone else may have the capacity to better handle your situation, and you may have the capacity to better handle theirs. As I said above, the comparison is inherently pointless. Recognize and acknowledge that your rubber band is being stretched. Understand that you have a limit and that limit will not be the same as someone else’s. You may be hard on yourself for thinking you are not able to handle a situation as well as someone else, but the truth is, that person may be stretched further than you, but they are not at their capacity.
Think about you and a colleague who each have the same deadline. The stress of the deadline is stretching your capacity for panic to 40cm which is your maximum. However, your colleague’s maximum capacity for panic is 60cm. You are both experiencing the same stretching event bringing you both to 40cm, but your colleague is not at capacity and, therefore, can operate more calmly than you. However, in this scenario, you are the one experiencing more panic because it is your limit and not theirs. It matters less what the actual limit is, just that it is the limit.
I have used the rubber band metaphor a lot in my practice and it has helped people to stop comparing themselves to others, stop comparing their situations to other’s, and to stop downplaying their own stressors or their ability to handle them. It helps people to focus in on their own circumstances and stop imagining others, and to stop feeling the guilt or shame of struggle.
Thanks for reading,
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