On comparison

And leaving the other voices behind.

“But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world…”

— Mary Oliver

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One night, a few days after I got the idea for this newsletter, I was curled up on the couch in our living room, enjoying a few quiet moments to myself. 

Elena was down for the night and Jose was out playing tennis, so I opened my laptop and began looking up other newsletters. I was curious about what was already out there, and how my own idea might fit into the landscape. 

And perhaps you’re familiar with what happened next — because somewhere along the way, my curiosity transformed into comparison. The more I read, the more I went sliding into doubt — coming across ideas I wish I’d had, books I wish I’d written.

After a little while, the sound of keys jingling in the door brought me back into the present. Jose walked inside, and immediately, he could tell something was up. 

“I just don’t like this person,” I told him. “The person I am when I compare myself and second-guess everything.”

I found myself doing the same thing after Elena was born. As she slept in my arms, I would get on Instagram and see posts from other new moms who shared about how happy they were. It wasn’t that I didn’t also feel happy, but motherhood was also a lot harder than I expected it to be. And so I’d hold my happiness up to theirs, feeling like I came up short — like I wasn’t doing something right.

Both times, I tried to follow a similar way back to peace. 

I closed my laptop. 

I put away my phone. 

I tried to leave the other voices behind, as Mary Oliver once wrote so wisely, and give them less power over me.

I’ve also learned that comparison isn’t usually something we let go of once and are done with. Rather, it’s more of a continual letting go, a cycle of surrender and release, just as the trees let go of their leaves every year.  

And like a layer of golden leaves blanketing the ground, there can be beauty in that surrender, too.

Stroller walks through fallen maple leaves became a favorite daily ritual when Elena and I visited family in Kansas last autumn