Comparison doesn't have to be the thief of joy

I said this recently and I'll keep saying it.

We've all heard it... this is a fairly famous quote. But, what if instead of thinking of comparison as the thief of joy, and hence, trying to stop comparison, we just changed our thinking.

"Social comparison theory states that in the absence of objective measures for self-evaluation, we compare ourselves to others to find out how we're doing. Going back to our example above, the measure for how good your concerto is depends on comparison to other concertos. Does it hold up to Mozart's concertos? Is it better than most other modern concertos? There are essentially two types of comparisons that people make: upward comparisons, or comparing ourselves to others who are better than we are, and downward comparisons, or comparing ourselves to those who are not as proficient as we are at a given task." http://study.com/academy/lesson/self-comparison-theory-upward-vs-downward-social-comparison.html

What if I told you that you could use comparison to feel better about your situation? Well, that's exactly what social comparison theory says. We could make upward comparisons and say "I suck" compared to that person. We could make downward comparisons and say "that person sucks", but what if we spun it to be positive? What if, instead of "I suck" you said "I'm not as good at X as that person, but look where I could strive to be!" AHHH!!! And, what if, instead of "that person sucks" you said "Wow, I should be thankful for what I have (skills, talents, possessions, job, etc)" Again, AHHH!! In both situations we aren't allowing social comparison theory to place negative value on our comparisons... we are noticing them and using them, either to strive for better OR to be grateful.

I don't look at the beautiful Marte Elverum (above) and say "wow, I suck, I'll never be that strong, that outgoing, that pretty"... I look at her and say "wow! I can get stronger... look what a beautiful woman can do... maybe I can be better too". Conversely, I don't look down on other lifters who aren't as strong as me and say "oh, I'm so good compared to you", I am grateful for all the hours I spent in the gym and all the coaching I've received and the nutrition help I get. At the end of the day, don't allow comparison to be the thief of joy! Use it to drive you to happiness, gratitude and the knowledge you can achieve more than you probably believed.

Strong never should've been the new skinny

This stuff has been written about a few times by a few people. But, again, I am way behind the 8 ball with this whole blogging thing, so just bare with me while I catch up to everyone else ;)

I HATE THIS!! I understand when women use this phrase as some kind of empowerment message. We want to be strong and healthy. Sure! But, this message is not that if you really look at it. This message is the message that if you're "skinny" you are flawed. Look, all I had to do was search "skinny" on Google Images and look what I found very quickly.

FAIL? Really? She fails at something because she has this gap in her legs (yes, I know it's a thigh gap, which vacillates between being coveted and hated). Give me a break that this somehow means she should have a big circle on her with the word FAIL there. Ya right... because today the person that made this decided that by his/her beauty standards this wasn't desireable. What a load of crap!

What if we decided that no one FAILED because of a body shape or structure? Strong isn't the new skinny... this is just one more way that we have given society the right to tell us how we are supposed to look. Now, by today's standards I'm supposed to look "strong" (how does strong look anyway?) and not skinny. Except sometimes I'm supposed to look skinny. And now the big ass is considered "in" but what about all those women that tried for so many years to have a small ass... and what about those women that don't naturally have a round ass. Believe it or not, we aren't all "failures" because of this. Guess what guys... I SQUAT and I DEADLIFT, and I don't have a big ol' round booty that you can rest a coffee cup on...

Which of these women looks "strong"? Do they all look "strong"? How about WE STOP PRESSURING WOMEN TO MEET SOME B.S. STANDARD OF BEAUTY! And how about the women that meet certain cultural standards stop ragging on women that don't? If I see one more comment or meme that indicates in some way that "real women look like..." or "real men prefer...." I might actually scream!! Guess what women? We do it to ourselves... we are the ones that are perpetuating these standards. I'm not saying don't try and meet cultural standards of beauty IF YOU WANT, but stop ragging on women that don't for whatever reason. I wear make up, I get my hair coloured, I am relatively fit and care how I look as far as social standards go... but what I won't do for one more second is suggest to any person that because she or he doesn't meet the flavour of the week, s/he has failed or is somehow less.