I heard a great quote the other day listening to the Create and Thrive podcast: “Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside” (which I found attributed to Hugh Macleod in “How to Be Creative“).
It really struck a chord with me. I, like most people, am always comparing myself, my work, my life, to other peoples. I guess we really can’t help but compare ourselves to others (despite our mothers in our ears saying, “Don’t compare yourself to others!”) but let’s be kinder to ourselves and at least compare apples with apples. What we see of other people is what they want us to see. We all have our public and our private faces (admittedly some people might show more of what is on the inside than others). Generally, we see other people’s outsides but we look at our own inside. It isn’t fair on ourselves to compare the two.
Take Facebook for example. Use of Facebook has been linked to depression due to users comparing their lives to the lives of their, apparently, more successful friends. The fact is, however, that our Facebook profiles and statuses are carefully crafted, highly edited reflections of our real lives. We tend to post only those things that we are proud of, excited about or that make us happy. Sitting at home reading about all the lovely things happening to other people when you’ve just had an average day (not even a bad one) can make you feel like your life is pretty dull. I remember posting once a list of all the places around the world that my Facebook friends were currently visiting at that point in time. It was a long list and I hadn’t been on an overseas holiday for many, many years (can’t complain about that anymore though, can I?!) It felt like I was the only one not having an exotic holiday because the posts about fabulous destinations outweighed posts about ‘another day at the office’. But when we look at the posts of our Facebook friends and judge our own lives in comparison, we are comparing our inside to their outside.
This notion of comparing insides with outsides came home to me in a stunning way this week. I have been invited to be featured in an online article about the upcoming Etsy Made Local event. (Excited much? If it comes off, I will certainly share it with you). I was first approached about it on Sunday and, though inwardly choking just a little (OK, a lot!) I said I would do it. Then I was contacted late on Monday afternoon and asked to provide high quality photos of myself, my studio and my products by Wednesday!
After the initial panic, and realising that, with the very short timeframe I could not manage this alone, I contacted a photographer whom I had met through The Makers’ Collective. The lovely Grace Costa came to my rescue and came to do a photo shoot (did I even say that???!!) on Tuesday afternoon.
What has this got to do with insides and outsides? Well the gorgeous photos Grace took of me in my studio were very much the polished up version of, well, both me and my studio. I already knew it to be true but experiencing it first hand drove the point home – the photos you see in magazines, on the Internet and in professional Instagram feeds are the carefully styled, presenting-the-very-best-side photos that send the message that the editor wants you to see.
Now, My followers are familiar with the usual state of my studio. This is my inside, people! I love the photos Grace took – I’ll be posting them up all over the place! But they don’t tell the whole story about me and my ‘studio’ (which is in quotes because my ‘studio’ is a room in my home which isn’t really all mine. It is the study, guest room and extra sitting room as well. Insides!) If I do end up featured on the Internet, someone out there might look at these photos and compare their own studio (or whatever space they have) and feel they fall short (hell, I do!) but they would be comparing their inside with my outside and that just isn’t a fair comparison.
I think it is a particular trap for creative people – and we are all creative people – to compare themselves to others. Expressing your creativity is such a personal thing. I believe completely in the importance of creative expression but it is scary to put your stuff out there where it can be viewed (and therefore judged) by the outside world. If you add to that fear comparison to others, it is no wonder so many people do not take the risk and miss out on the joy that creative expression brings. Theodore Roosevelt said “Comparison is the thief of joy” – how true! Especially when you are starting out with a new area of creative expression, it is just unfair to yourself to compare your piece to others who are ready to put out in front of the eyes of the world.
It isn’t even relevant to compare yourself to anyone else because it is the process of creating that is important because of the the joy and wellbeing that it brings.
I know we will go on comparing ourselves to others but let’s do ourselves a favour and put it in the right perspective… Compare your outside with other outsides and not apples with oranges. Or better still, don’t compare yourself to anyone except the person you were yesterday!
