One Sunday morning, my wife returned from the 10:45 Mass. She told me it was the deacon who gave the homily (sermon), and that I would’ve benefited from hearing what he had to say. The apparent lesson from the sermon: stop comparing yourself to others.

It’s no secret that comparing ourselves to others can be mentally and socially detrimental to our well-being. Mental health professionals, life coaches and others have studied and lectured on the habit as comparing oneself to the people around him/her can have significant mental, social, health, and emotional consequences, including:

–jealousy and distrust toward others, which can ruin friendships and relationships

–ungratefulness or greediness

–grief, depression, and experiencing a sense of hopelessness and loss of direction

–low self-esteem

–may even potentially drive one to commit offenses or crimes towards others

Comparing ourselves to others is something we do naturally, though, and we’ve all struggled with it at some point in our lives. As teenagers, we resented each other for exceeding or failing at the social game; as kids, we learned to envy and hate other kids because they have the latest and greatest in toys, tech or fashion trends. Great friends from college drift apart as one becomes successful while the other bounces from one job to the next with no clear direction. Office colleagues may suddenly be separated as one ascends a floor through promotion, or the other is dropped a floor via demotion, organizational restructuring, or termination.

But comparing ourselves was never predominately negative, deteriorating or hateful. In fact, early in began as inspirational as we admired others as kids; we looked up to others. We looked up to who we perceived as heroes and, in turn, wanted to become heroes ourselves. We looked up to cops and firefighters and wanted to be them when we grew up. Young aspiring athletes today look up to professional athletes. With a strong discipline and devotion, they study and model their moves and methodologies, develop strict dietary habits and training regiments, and make sacrifices to make that dream a possibility.

Perhaps breaking the habit of comparing ourselves to others is not the answer. Maybe we simply need to return to our childhood humble way of thinking about our future instead. Maybe we just need to upgrade the lens prescription by which we see ourselves and each other through. Rather than look upon our successful colleagues with envy and upon ourselves with pity or self-loathing, perhaps we should reload the habit with admiration, analysis, and strategy to find our own path to that same level of success, and maybe even do it even better.