Love Doesn't Compare or Measure: When You Open Your Phone and a Minute Later You Feel Like a Failure

It all starts casually. You open your phone to check a few IG messages, laugh at the video your friend sent you, and then you start to scroll. One shiny post of someone who seems to have it all figured out. A minute later, you feel like a failure.

You switch to knocking out a few tasks, push out an email, answer a text, solve another problem, until you’re tired, overwhelmed, and positive that you don’t have anything figured out.

It starts harmless. But behind the feeling of failure is a longing to be good, to know yourself, and belong.

It isn't just you. We have fallen asleep into comparing our lives, trying to fix what’s wrong, and forgetting who we really are. Another task done and we don’t feel it. A swipe and we don’t see it. We forget it’s even there.

Every night before I say goodnight to my daughter, she hands me three stuffies. Her bear. An elephant. And Pusheen. She asks me to put love into them. I squeeze them hard and whisper, I love you, I love you, I love you, and I feel myself pouring love in. Then I ask, “Are you ready?” She opens her arms wide, and I press them to her heart before she wraps her arms around them.

My love is with you all night long, I tell her.

As I walked out of her room, I wondered whether life is any different from that. Whether God, or Love, is whispering the same thing to us. Squeezing love into the trees, the plants, the animals. Into you. Into me.

All night long.

Your child’s eyes? Love was squeezed into them. The giant tree or the yellow roses. The smile from the delivery guy. The hug from your partner. The conversation that made you laugh or the driver who waved you in. You, in your body, holding your phone, right now.

Love squeezed in.

And then we fall back asleep into the measuring, only to feel shame, or superiority.

Love knows everything you’ve gone through, everything you carry, how hard you try, and how hard this can be. It doesn’t care if you have it all figured out, or nothing figured out.

Imagine seeing yourself the way Love does.

When you’re comparing yourself to someone on a screen, Love says, sweetheart, I have never once held you up against anyone.

When you're facing the hard thing, Love says, I know how hard this is. You're never alone.

When you look at your life and feel discouraged for not being where you thought you'd be, Love says, there is nowhere else I would rather be than right here with you.

We forget to even imagine how we’d look through Love’s eyes.

So here’s the practice.

Notice when you’re measuring. It announces itself as the tightness in your chest, or the urge to knock out one more task before you’re allowed to rest.

Take a deep breath and look for one place love was squeezed in. The tree outside the window. The text from your friend. Your own hands.

Then turn it toward yourself. Ask how Love sees you.

It’s in every corner of our human experience, even if we’re sleepwalking.

It’s there.

The whole day and all night, too.

xo,

Sarah

I write regularly about aliveness, fear, and the inner choices that shape our lives. Get the next one in your inbox.