Comparisons

Since it's been so long since I've had anything to say, I'd better freaking say something.

Imagine, if you will, that we are sitting across from each other at a cafe and run out of things to talk about. So - naturally, we'd start to talk about other people. If you don't do this, then stop reading, go back to being perfect, and the rest of us will talk about you after you've left.

When talking about other people, I've noticed that I either:

a) moan about them

b) compare myself to them

Both suck.

Complaining about someone ALWAYS comes back to you. I've experienced this so many times that Karma bitch-slaps me now. She's given up on gentle hints.

So how do you stop? Well, for the talking about other people thing, I imagine that they can hear what I'm saying. That usually makes me behave better. But once I get into a good story, I usually forget and start embellishing to the point that by the end of the story, the person I'm talking about actually set fire to his own pants to prove what an idiot he was.

According to this dude, there are better ways.

One bit of advice he gives is to avoid hero worship. I once thought these people were truly amazing. Then I went to work for them and I realized they were human beings and I was vastly disappointed. Yep, I was thirty-seven when I finally realized, "Oh my God! Spiderman isn't REAL?!?!"

And making them villains is also narrow-minded because everyone has some good - even if it's just to serve as a warning to others! When my teaching mentor was arrested for molesting his students, I learned that . . . therapy helps! Well, mostly that nothing's black and white.

One thing I'm getting way better at is comparing myself to myself. For example: I am so much slimmer now than I was when I was pregnant. I am so much saner now that I'm older and more confident about things. But there's the cringe effect of remembering when I actually said *that* out loud, or wore that dress that often counteracts my best intentions of self-comparison.

So what am I saying? Not much. But that's okay - because I'm not comparing myself to this blog.