I belong to a Facebook group called Power Purge Peeps. It is a group of people who want to de-clutter their homes one small area at a time. So far, I’ve cleared out my fridge and my pantry and I’m about to tackle my bakeware. Since I’m the administrator of this group, I love to share my before and after pictures. This is very motivating to me and I think others like to see that someone else is actually doing these tasks with them. I really enjoy seeing other peoples’ accomplishments and progress too. However, today, when I was sharing a picture of my pantry as a collage of a before and after photo, I remembered a time when a friend set me straight on something.
At the time, I was grumbling about my weight (which is something I do about as often as I complain about the clutter in my house.) I grumble about it, but I don’t always do something about it. Anyhow, as I was complaining to her one day about needing to wear my “fat jeans” she said, “You do realize that your fat jeans are my skinny jeans, right?” Ouch. That was probably very true, but it didn’t make me feel any better about my “fat jeans.” The thing it did make me realize is that we are all striving for different things. Whether it’s a different size of jeans or a more orderly pantry, progress in our own situation is what will make us feel good. It does no good to compare our situation to the situation of others. We all start somewhere and then improvement from that starting point is what matters.
So as I share these photos, I realize that my Before photo may look like someone’s After photo and my After photo may look like someone’s Before photo and that is okay. I’ll just be pleased that I made progress and I hope you are too!
PS – If you struggle with comparison, check out What you Make It to find 10 Bible verses for when you play the comparison game.
becktobasics 