How many parts of our day revolve around making comparisons? We spend time wondering how we're stacking up to our competition; we see someone's highlight reel on social media and wonder why our lives don't look as shiny. Even by classifying our favorites, by entertaining the idea of the "best," we immediately cast our experiences and memories in the shadows of the past. I do it too; it's a learned practice.
A remarkable thing about Guatemalan culture is how they don't compartmentalize or compare. At first, this was so incredibly frustrating to me. What did they mean they didn't have a favorite memory, a favorite part of their day? I realized then, that the western world teaches us the continuum of good and bad, the likert scale to which we subject our day-to-day experiences.
There must be a purpose to this now subconscious rating. For one, it simplifies things, we either like something or we don't, and then that item falls into the spectrum of our likes and dislikes, and we move on. In a chaotic world, such simplicity can be soothing. Perhaps it helps us process; our brains look for patterns and it calms our innate desire to understand. So maybe comparisons aren't evil after all, but I can't help but wonder if we're diluting our life experience.
I wonder if living has become so automatic that our emotions become tempered, and our ability to fully experience is diminished a little bit more. It's almost as if by comparing a current situation to a past situation, we lessen our opportunity to learn, somehow tricking our brains into thinking we already know.
I keep coming back to the saying "comparison is the thief of joy" and thinking maybe it's time we start leaving our scales and measuring tapes at home.
I don't have answers to how to counterbalance these autonomic responses to size up my experiences with past ones. I don't know how to unlearn something that's served purpose for generations of people. I don't even know if it's important to try to unlearn it all.
However, I did grow to admire and understand the fresh perspective of my Guatemalan friends. There is such a sense of peace knowing that whatever happens happens, and we'll move forward regardless. They hold each experience in the palm of their hands with nothing to measure it up to; the experience, the person, their situation just exists with its own unique set of qualities. It's not expected to meet a standard or expectation; it simply is what it is.
Oddly enough, I think about all this frequently when I see sunrises and sunsets. I always find myself coming back to the curiosity of which is more beautiful. There obviously isn't an answer but I think about it nonetheless.
My Guatemalan friends taught me there is simplicity in acceptance without expectations -- how beautiful it is to watch the moon give way to the sun and later the sun bow down to the moon, to never wonder who wore it better, the morning or the night.