Author: Chuck Lucas

I am the Editor and Founder of https://principlesneverfail.us/ a blog dedicated to principle centered personal development. The social, intellectual, physical, and spirtual challenges facing individuals and the communities in which we live in 2020 and beyond will require the best that is within us. True principles anchor us to the truths previously discovered. We can move forward into the future with confidence on the correct path if we do not forsake the truths we already know. My over 50 year quest has been to discover true principles and seek to understand and strive to apply them in my life. My hope is that some of what I have found may be of value to my family, friends, and to you.

The vexatious tendency to compare.

This whole endeavor is rife with paradoxes, but these very tensions can be productive. The best way to remember that our contests are only with ourselves is to think less about ourselves. The best way to stop comparing ourselves with others is to think more of others. When we don’t find easy answers, it is my hope and my prayer that the Spirit will teach us of these “peaceable things of the kingdom” (D&C 36:2), even when they are hard for us to articulate.

There is no question that you and I are going to fail at many things we attempt to do, and in the eyes of those making comparisons, we all are repeatedly going to fall short. Someone else will be hired for a job, picked for the team, selected for a calling, and so on. But do not take that as a mark of your worth. Disappointments do sting, but they can also be wonderfully, albeit painfully, formative. Do not let the temptation to compare give these disappointments destructive power. When disappointments hit, take a deep breath; remember what really matters. –J. B. Haws