The comparison that steals the joy

Theodore Roosevelt is said to have called comparison the thief of joy. He did not have a phone that shows a thousand curated lives before breakfast. We do. And the feeling he described, where something good suddenly seems less valuable because someone else seems to be doing better, has never been easier to trigger. It happens a hundred times a day, and we often don’t even notice.

It is worth separating two things that are often lumped together: striving and never being good enough. Wanting to get better at something is healthy and human. Perfectionism is something else. It means tying your worth as a person to performing flawlessly, and measuring yourself against a bar that rises the moment you reach it. Researchers distinguish between holding high standards for yourself and what is called socially prescribed perfectionism: the feeling that other people demand that you be perfect, and that you will be unloved if you are not. It is the latter that, in studies, is most clearly linked to depression, anxiety and burnout.