The ‘Great Comparison & Feeling 'Less Than'

Ah, the ‘great comparison’ - human nature of course, but if the hyper-growth in social media usage hasn’t exacerbated this amongst us all tremendously, then I don’t know what has.

Constant ‘highlight’ reel imagery in our faces daily - years ago, it would just be from celebrities or the small glimpses we’d get into the lives of the upper classes. But now?

Today? I can tell you in minute detail the gym or exercise routine, holiday schedule, cocktail preference of most people in town. I can tell you where they get their hair cut, the cars they drive and to be perfectly frank, more often than not, exactly what they look like in their underwear.

And of course – it's never the Premier Inn, a day in Ajman, Carrefours finest or a Toyota Camry. They are never in a Karama ‘saloon’ and those fitness freaks? Like I say *minute* detail. Don’t see many shares of a full English fry up either do you?

Even the mentally stronger amongst us feel it. You can guarantee when the school holidays come around and you are lucky to get out the house for an hour, half of Dubai are in Zanzibar (copy/paste whichever ‘in’ destination this year) Your job sucks and someone else is launching their third business. Stealth pictures of the Cayenne car keys whilst you are queuing at the petrol station in your 13-year-old Pajero. Scrolling whilst you wait, obvs.

So, it’s easy, it’s easy to feel ‘less than’ and it’s not just humble braggers on social media, but real life too. When we are feeling inferior, it’s because we feel like we don’t measure up. It affects our self-worth and makes us question our abilities.

Unlike a ‘superiority’ complex, the inferior version is worse. People who lack self-awareness will never know that they are un-self-aware – what a pleasant state to live in. For the others who live in a state of constant ‘lack’, that feeling of ‘less than’ needs tackling, well, head-on.

Feeling ‘less than’ shows up mentally and externally. In our heads, it can become a self fulfilling prophecy. If you don’t feel ‘good enough’ then you may as well be not be ‘good enough’. We tell ourselves stories to keep ourselves ‘in place’ and become exactly what it is our mind monkeys are telling us. It turns us hostile and irritable, that lack of patience with our loved ones sending us to bed wishing we had a relationship like X and Y.

Which in turn leads to insomnia (more scrolling) and lack of lovely, healthy sleep. It may make us withdraw socially and more sensitive to criticism.

Isn’t it interesting how many times you will meet someone you only know ‘online’ and how they have a very different persona in real life? Let’s be honest, they will often look totally different too. The irony that someone who feels the need to showcase only the ‘picture perfect’ to the public, in public has an inferiority complex that is manifesting itself in a totally different way to yours.

Think about that the next time you ‘wish you had....’

// Kellie Whitehead