If You’re Happy and You Know It….
You don’t compare
Remember that song we sang as children that goes like this.
“If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands, if you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands, if you’re happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it, if you’re happy and you know it clap your hands (Janico Music, copyrighted January 29, 1971).
When I was growing up we would sing different versions of this song by substituting the words “clap your hands” with other phrases like “brush your teeth,” “eat your broccoli” and “help your sister.” My mom provided these additional helpful phrases and it was kind of brilliant how she connected broccoli and helping my sisters to happiness.
I’m not sure broccoli makes me happier, but this has led me to think about what makes me happy or at least happier. This article and more to come under the same title “If You’re Happy and You Know It…” is a journey of what I think causes us to be happy, and what gets in our way. Here is my first happier recommendation: Don’t Compare.
It’s January, and that means a new year. It also means we just finished a year wrapping up loose ends and getting our last paycheck for the year, and maybe even a holiday bonus. In the past dozen years, I have worked for a professional service firm that hands out a bonus at year end. We are all generally pleased with our bonuses, with a lot of smiles all around until…we find out what someone else got.
I see it every time. Happiness is immediately squelched once comparison walks in the door. This is not an anomaly because I have watched this same scenario play out for years. And we get unhappy over and over like a scene from the Bill Murray movie, Groundhog Day. But why?
It turns out there is a reason why we compare and why it sets us up for unhappiness. Understanding the reason why comparison hurts us can help us choose whether to engage in it at all. Social comparison theory says we do two types of comparisons: downward and upward. Let’s look at both and consider an alternative to comparing at all.
Downward Comparison
Downward comparison means we compare ourselves to people who are perceived to have less than we have or are less well-of in some way. If we compare our year-end bonus with a peer’s bonus and notice we got more money than they did, we may experience a boost in our self-esteem. We may make our larger bonus mean we have just “won” or done something better than our peer.
Are we smarter, more efficient, more capable, or more profitable than our peer we just compared ourselves to? Maybe, but did knowing that make us happier? Does that motivate us to be even better, or to help the person we just looked down upon to be better? It can provide a temporary boost, but it does not add to our overall sense of self-worth. And, here’s the really negative part: in order to continue to boost our self-esteem using downward comparison, we HAVE TO KEEP FINDING OTHERS WHO ARE LESS FORTUNATE THAN WE ARE and keep comparing ourselves to them.
The thought of constantly seeking examples of people who are less fortunate than me seems like an exhausting and very depressing exercise. And yet, if we derive our sense of self-worth from others who are less fortunate then that is what we will have to do to keep feeding our self-esteem. There must be a better way to feel good about ourselves. I think there is, and the title of this story has already given it away, but first let’s look at upward comparisons.
Upward Comparison
The other way we compare is upward. This means we look for someone who did better than us: they got the larger bonus. In this scenario, our self-esteem could fall as we question our value, innate worth, contributions, and commitments. If we tend to be a fighter, we may start to argue that the system is unfair, or rigged, or rewards the wrong behaviors or outcomes, or is stacked against us in some unfair way. If we are more of the suffer silently and go off and lick our wounds kind of person, we may tell ourselves we are not as good as the next guy or had a crappy year. Sometimes upward comparison can motivate us to improve or overcome some obstacle. However, upward comparison is just as likely to fuel envy and lower our self-esteem.
Both kinds of comparisons, downward and upward, can negatively impact our sense of worth. And neither one considers the complexity of someone else’s life and circumstances. We cannot tell on the surface how happy someone is, despite all those smiling photos on Facebook and Instagram. What we can do is realize we all have winning and losing moments. The most successful people have failed at something. And those with a lot of success have probably failed more than the rest of us if we add it all up. But I wouldn’t recommend we add it up and compare it to our own number of failures. 😊
We should instead look at the ways we are connected and alike. We can seek to understand someone else rather than distance ourselves and judge both them and us. We can choose to be happy for ourselves and our bonus check while not begrudging someone else’s success. This will lead to a deeper kind of happiness, one that is generated inside us rather than being dependent on what others are doing or getting. Remember, happiness is an inside job.
