My right shoelace was a little loose, so I bent down and retied it. Much tighter; much better. I walked on. In less than 20 steps I felt my left shoelace was now loose, so I bent down and retied it. Much tighter; much better.
As I walked on, I realised my left lace had felt completely fine until I tied my right lace more firmly. Then – only then – did my left lace feel slack. Because the right was tighter, the left felt loose, which caused me to fix it too.
My shoelace ‘experience’ reveals something interesting.
It’s this: often we decide something is right or wrong only when we compare it to something else. Studying an alternative makes us rethink what we are already doing or already have. It’s the comparison which causes us to make changes.
Here are several imagined examples:
- Before putting my house on the market, I compare its value with the prices paid for similar homes nearby. They sold for a lot more than I first thought mine was worth. My hopes rise and so does my sale price, as I adjust it to equal what was paid for the homes of my neighbours.
- I start at university, not sure where to go, which lectures never to miss, how to go about assignments. But I watch other students, see what they do, and I match it.
- I am content with my salary, but then discover that others doing similar work get paid much more than me. I am now discontent, and demand that my boss gives me a raise.
- I think my house décor looks great, but visit a friend whose home is so beautiful it could feature in a home design magazine. Now I feel my home is inadequate, and call in a designer.
- I prepare a wonderful meal for visiting friends – beef stroganoff. They tell me they enjoyed it, and invite me for a meal in their home. They serve salmon en croute – cream cheese and dill beautifully encased in light puff pastry. It’s magnificent. My beef stroganoff no longer seems special. I enrol in a culinary school.
- I love my car. It’s comfortable, reliable, and though not fast it gets me where I want to go. Then my neighbour buys a top of the range Porshe. The leather seats are luxurious, the technology mind-boggling, the engine purrs before roaring into life when he pushes the accelerator. I fall out of love with my car.
Several of these examples are about envy, and I may write about that another time. But envy is not the key point here, which is simply that we adjust our behaviour when we encounter contrasting behaviour. Sometimes we know we’re doing it; sometimes we don’t.
However, changing what you do in the light of what someone else does or possesses requires caution.
First, realise your point of comparison may be poor
For a couple of years I worked in a large open-plan office where Jean also worked. Jean was clearly a good staff member. Very efficient in all she did. In one respect, Jean was super-efficient. I’d walk past her desk after she’d left for the day, and the top of her desk was completely bare. No in-tray or out-tray. No stack of folders. No pile of to-do notes. No stapler, no pens, no paper clips. Not even her landline phone. The desk surface was completely empty. Jean had put everything, literally everything, away in drawers and cabinet. It was impressive.
Many blog posts ago I wrote about two visits to friends. These people did not know each other, but they did have something in common.
Noreen showed us round her modest-sized home. Everything was neat and clean, very neat and very clean. There were no stray cups or plates lying around the kitchen; in the bedroom no clothes strewn over a chair and no overcrowding of the wardrobe; no cushions out of place on the sofa in the lounge. We had to ask: ‘How do you keep everything so perfectly in place like this?’ Noreen’s answer was simple: ‘If I buy something new, I remove something old.’ That’s why her wardrobe and chest of drawers would never overflow. It was hard not to admire Noreen’s ruthlessness.
At their invitation, we visited Chris and Sally just one day after they moved into a new home. I’d protested we shouldn’t visit so soon, but had been assured it would be fine. It wasn’t just fine; the place looked like a show home. Nothing was out of place. At a quiet moment Sally gave away the secret. At the old house, Chris hadn’t allowed a single item to be packed for removal without it being labelled exactly where it was to go in the new place. On arrival, the removers opened the boxes, and laid each item down where prescribed. That’s why, when we visited next day, there were no unpacked boxes, no unhung pictures, nothing lacking a location. It was all perfect. Wasn’t that wonderful? (Both stories originally at https://occasionallywise.com/2021/06/12/how-we-caused-a-plague-of-frogs/)
Jean, Noreen, and Chris provided amazing examples of organisation and tidiness. But:
- At the end of each day Jean used 15 minutes of work time stowing away all her desk top papers and tools, and at the beginning of the next day another 15 minutes retrieving them.
- Noreen’s ruthlessness eventually got the better of her. She didn’t control her super-orderliness; it controlled her. It became a compulsion, which sadly led to a broader mental breakdown.
- Something similar was happening with Chris. He couldn’t function without everything being exactly in its right place. That actually made him inefficient, wore down relationships with others, and was one reason his marriage failed and career ended.
Not for a moment am I criticising habits like tidiness. My sole point is that we may encounter traits or practices in others which, initially, we find admirable. The contrast with what we do is stark. My only minimally organised desk looked so cluttered compared to Jean’s swept-clean desk. At the time I thought ‘I should do what Jean does’. But in fact I shouldn’t. Half an hour of work time spent presenting a clean desk wasn’t what my employer wanted. And Noreen and Chris paid a high prince for their super-organised lives. I shouldn’t emulate them either.
Every person or object we initially admire does not qualify as an example we should copy. Perhaps your modest vacation doesn’t look like much compared to someone else’s lavish cruise, but your bank balance and the environment may thank you for your choice. A bad comparison is no guide to right behaviour.
Second, every comparison we reject doesn’t justify our own behaviour
What if I was speeding down the motorway at 80 miles per hour, feeling a little guilty because the limit is 70 mph? Suddenly a car roars past me. It’s going far faster, almost certainly around 110 mph. “Now that’s really bad ,” I say. “At least I’m not going that fast.” No, I’m not. But my 80 mph is still wrong and risks an accident. Because someone else’s actions are worse doesn’t make mine good.
I played golf in the company of Colin who, to use an old phrase, ‘swore like a trooper’, perhaps because he had been a trooper. Whether from childhood or his years in the military Colin had developed extremely crude language habits. His swear words outnumbered clean words in almost every sentence. He put me off my golf, and probably spoiled his own game. I was used to fellow-golfers who uttered the occasional expletive when they hit the ball out-of-bounds, or missed a short putt. Colin’s appalling language was in a class of its own, a very bad class. Yet that didn’t make it okay that others only used the ‘F’ word sometimes. Their language was better than Colin’s, but still fell short of ideal.
Contrasting our behaviour with someone else’s worse behaviour doesn’t make us good.
When I was a boy my friends and I would jump streams. The challenge was easy when the width was only two or three feet. We could all jump those streams. Next we’d find a place where the gap was five feet. We all managed that too. And then the gap was eight feet. Tommy was great at running and jumping and he cleared it easily. Freddy was not so fast, and slipped as he jumped. He flew only about four feet before plunging into the water. Useless. Then it was my turn. I ran and jumped to an excellent distance. But six feet wasn’t excellent enough for an eight foot gap, and down I fell into the water. I was better than Freddy, but just as wet as he was.
The point is obvious. We see someone doing less well than we are, and feel good about our attitude, our ability, our accomplishment. But contrasting ourselves with someone who is worse doesn’t prove we’re okay.
In our thinking, speaking, acting our point of comparison should be doing what is right and good. What someone else does is, in a sense, irrelevant. The standard isn’t being better than others. The standard is being the best we can be.
Third, maybe nothing needs changing
The final lesson from my shoelaces is very simple. When I’d first tied them, both shoelaces were adequately tight. Yes, as I walked I realised one was tighter than the other, but neither was loose. Both were holding my shoes on my feet perfectly well. Nothing needed changing.
Years ago I read a review of hi-fi equipment. Hi-fi is short for high fidelity, and audiophiles, the people who seek the purest reproduction of sound, invest a lot of money to buy the best. They want no ‘noise’, no distortion, and the ideal frequency response. Having put two h-fi systems through a battery of tests, the reviewer reported that A was fractionally better than B. But, he added, the difference was measurable only in a laboratory. In the real world situation of a music system in the home there would be echo from walls, absorption of sound by carpets and furniture, and extraneous noises such as from passing traffic. Add to that humans have a limited hearing range. “The honest truth,” the reviewer wrote, “is that you’ll never hear any difference between these systems.”
We compare what we have with what someone else has. Or what we can do with what another can do. Then we feel we must get the other thing or be like the other person.
Maybe we do, but maybe we don’t. Perhaps what really matters is being content with what we have and what we’re able to do. Life won’t be significantly different by making a change. Most likely both your shoelaces are already adequately fastened.
If you’ve found this blog post helpful, you’d likely also enjoy others from the archives. For example, have a look at these:
The left-handed ironing board https://occasionallywise.com/2022/01/01/the-left-handed-ironing-board/
When the right thing to do is nothing at all https://occasionallywise.com/2021/01/30/when-the-right-thing-to-do-is-nothing-at-all/
Inner peace https://occasionallywise.com/2023/07/15/inner-peace/
And, please think of sharing any of these with others who might appreciate reading them. Thank you.
Occasionally wise 