When I was a young married woman, we often had Sunday lunch with Al's parents. And often, there were many other relatives there as well, a house filled with people. Typically after lunch, the men went to the den and the women to the living room. I don't know what the men talked about. I only remember being horrified that all these older-than-I women seemed to talk about was their aches and pains, and their medicines, and the scars from their surgeries. I remember thinking, is this what I have to look forward to?
I have now entered the season of life where I suppose I would have something to contribute to those conversations. I have my own set of surgery scars and my own assortment of prescriptions to talk about. Yet even now I find myself wondering why that is such a fascinating topic of conversation. As a young woman, I was a little intimidated by all those conversations about aches and pains and surgery scars, even as I was also horrified by them. In many ways, nothing has changed.
I say nothing has changed, because now, nearly fifty years later, I have observed that the conversations are still very much the same. People still love to talk about their aches and pains, and their medicines, and their surgeries. Additionally, it seems that everyone wants to be sure their particular malady is the "star of the show". In other words, Linda Sue wants to be sure you know that her particular ailment has been written up in medical journals as the worst case of (whatever) on record, while Sally Jo is certain no one ever had such a difficult child-birth as when her babies were born, but Betty Ann can outdo everybody with how long she was in the hospital and how many infections she had and the rare diagnosis she got. On and on it goes. In every conversation, we're all trying to outdo each other.
My ingrown toenail was much more traumatic than your quadruple bypass. My headaches have been written up in medical journals. I had to travel to [insert big-name hospital] to have my bruised elbow diagnosed. On and on and on it goes. Names have been changed to protect the guilty!
Some things just don't change, I guess. From one generation to the next, human nature is still the same. It's part of our nature to want to be the center of attention. To be the star of the show. And so we continue to play the game.
You know the game I mean. I'm not talking about baseball or football or hockey. Or about Monopoly or Clue or Angry Birds. Or about a card game or a video game.
It's the game we all play. The one we deny playing, but we play all the same. We're all too familiar with this game. And it's the worst. Worst. Game. Ever.
It's the comparison game. The game no one can win. The game where we take over the conversations to be sure everyone knows just how sick we really are. Or how much we've had to suffer. Far more than any body else. It's the game where we try, in vain, to prove that we're just a little bit more. More important. More sick. More suffering. More pitiful. More whatever.
At the same time, it's the game where we never quite measure up. Where we're always feeling less than.
Less pretty. Less talented. Less intelligent. Less useful. Less.
It's a terrible game. It's a game we can't win. Because no matter how much we try to prove by our boasting or our complaining or our pushing ourselves to the center of the conversation, that we are
more than, better than, we still, down deep on the inside, feel
less than.
The root problem, the real reason we try so hard to appear to be
more than even when we are feeling so
less than, is that all these comparisons we make are based on a false premise.
This comparison game we play is based on the premise that what I think someone else is thinking about me is actually what they're thinking. And most of the time, maybe even all the time, what they are actually thinking is
miles away from what I think they are thinking.
Even more important, what
"they" think of me doesn't really matter so much anyway, does it? Isn't what the Lord thinks of me what really matters? That's what we tell ourselves we believe, and most of the time we probably do. But then there are those times when that little voice inside our heads starts talking to us and convinces us that we are less. And so we start playing "the game". Worst. Game. Ever.
It's the "I'm Completely Inadequate" game. Also known as the "I'm Not Quite Good Enough" game. Sometimes known as the "Nobody Else Ever Has Any Problems" game. Or the "Nobody Really Understands Just How Hard My Life Is". Or "Nobody Really Knows What I've Been Through".
There are all sorts of variations to this game. The game has no rules. We all make up our own rules. And don't pretend you've never played this game.
We play it when we are tired or when we are frustrated or when we are scared. We play it when we are feeling intimidated. We play it when we are trying to fit in. Or when we are trying to make a good first impression. It happens when we listen to our sister or our best friend or our neighbor or our church acquaintance or someone we just met. You know her. She bakes her own bread and grows all her own vegetables and upholsters furniture and makes drapes and has perfect children who are perfectly dressed and she has a perfect haircut and only eats organic food and goes on three cruises every year and never has any worries about money and she just finished her first novel which is now on the best-seller list.
The problem begins when we compare our worst day to her best. Or at least what she reveals or what we perceive that to be.
But the real problem is not that we're making a comparison of worst to best. The real problem is making a comparison at all.
How much better life would be if we would stop playing this game. If we could teach ourselves to stop making comparisons. If we could learn to be content. If we could shift our focus from what someone else is or has or does, and focus on becoming all that God intends each of us individually to be. If we could keep our eyes fixed on Jesus rather than on someone else. If we could be encouraging others to keep their eyes fixed on Him rather than keeping their eyes fixed on us. If we could focus on running the race He has set before us, rather than focusing on the race He set before someone else, or trying to run their race, or wishing we could.
Perhaps that's the real secret to contentment. Eyes fixed on Jesus. Not on our neighbor or our friend or the celebrity on TV. Not on what someone else has or does. Not on our circumstances.
Eyes fixed on Jesus.
Not on playing that silly comparison game.
Which is the Worst. Game. Ever.
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12:1-2, ESV, emphasis mine)
