a post on insecurity and that terrible comparison thing

I'm starting this post on insecurity off with a mirror self picture for juxtaposition purposes 

(and because I think every post should include a picture).

This post is giving me every level of grief. I've started it and erased it then started it again in an attempt to get it right. I walk away from it and then come back to it, waiting for the right words to come to me. The words aren't something that's coming naturally to me right now. I won't give up, though because I feel strongly that these words need to be said. This post is also about being honest.

And honestly, I've been battling some serious insecurity as of late.

I have this terrible habit of comparing myself to others. It's a problem. And it's causing me a lot of unhappiness if I let it take over me. Like a disease it creeps into my mind and into my life and takes over. Sometimes as a slow dripdripdrip and sometimes crashing over me like a tsunami.

I don't cook. I just don't. If something has more than about 3 ingredients I throw in the towel before I even start and choose from my vast assortment of frozen dinners. My son eats a lot of PB&J. My kitchen is the apartment equivalent for some people's formal dining rooms. It doesn't get a lot of use. It doesn't get almost any use. I am the queen of take-out and eating my parents' leftovers. If I'm really being honest with myself it's because I won't cook. It's expensive to buy ingredients. I'm afraid to fail. I don't want to cook for one.  This doesn't make me a bad person.

I repeat: this does not make me a bad person.

The problem is when I start resenting people who have things that I do not have. I'm not the smallest, the most fit, the prettiest, the funniest, the smartest, the most organized (or even the second or third most organized). I'm not showered with attention. I don't have ten pairs of  Jimmy Choos or one pair of Jimmy Choos. It is okay that I don't have these things. But it's also okay that other people do have these things.

I find myself comparing my weaknesses to other people's strengths. I compare my everything anti-domestic lifestyle to the mom who makes three meals a day from scratch and grows all her own food and makes up her own recipes then takes beautiful photographs of them to post on her blog that has tens of thousands of followers. I compare my body with an overly photoshopped body in a magazine. And guess what? When I start doing this I come up  short. Every. Single. Time.

Imagine that. 


So I'm making a deal with myself (an early resolution perhaps) to stop comparing. Stop setting myself up to feel insecure. Stop making comparisons that I've lost before I've started. I hope you do the same. Because when I turn things around and stop focusing on my shortcomings and start focusing on my strengths...I'm a pretty worthwhile  human  being. You're a pretty worthwhile human being.

We are good enough.