Are You a Mixed-Up Chameleon?

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Comparison is an act of violence against the self." - Iyanla Vanzant

My daughter and I both love Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It's actually the only story of his that I remember reading as a child. Some days, though, my daughter and I scout YouTube looking for stories to listen to together - she has extensive library and read a lot, too. However, on this particular day, she wanted to watch and listen to a story as told by someone other than me. We stumbled across The Mixed-Up Chameleon and we were both pleasantly surprised. As an illustrator, I'm impressed with Carle's style and as a children's book author, the simplicity of his stories is a revelation.

It's not lost on me that simplicity is the best way to reveal and have lessons in truth delivered to children.

In this particular story, the main character was, you guessed it, a chameleon! This chameleon wanted to be and do everything that he was not designed to do. He was so consumed with all the things he couldn't do in comparison to other animals that he overlooked his own innate abilities.

The chameleon reminded me of myself. It's so easy to get sucked into the trap of comparing ourselves to others to measure wealth or success that sometimes we don't even know we are doing it. We look at endless hours of highlight reels of other people's lives and compare them to our reality.

Keeping your eyes on your own paper-being focused - can be extremely hard to do. Especially, when you see friends or family members acquiring all of the success and accolades that you've been yearning for.

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Missed opportunities

In The Mixed-Up Chameleon, the chameleon gained all of the characteristics that he coveted in other animals: the neck of giraffe, the trunk of an elephant, the legs of a flamingo, you get the gist. Yet, he never seemed to be satisfied.

One day, a fly was going past and the chameleon wanted badly to eat it, but he had contorted himself in so many ways to be like everyone else that he couldn't do the thing he was originally designed to do, catch the fly.

The chameleon missed his opportunity/blessing because he was too concerned with trying acquire the gifts earmarked for others.

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Refocusing

Whenever I find myself tempted to lust after someone else's life, I do these three things to get myself back on track:

1. I write a gratitude list. Jotting down every single thing I have RIGHT NOW to be grateful for including my talents, material things, family - EVERYTHING. Doing this reminds me that my life is going better than I think.
2. I remind myself that I don't know anyone else's journey, only the bits and pieces that they want me to know. I compile affirmations around my own goals and write a list of what I want to accomplish in the next 3–6 months with 3 steps each.
3. Last but not least, I take a break from social media to focus on my own goals. It could be 8 hours, 12 hours or 24 hours. I use that time to focus on completing one or two steps toward a couple of my goals and by the time I log back in, my perspective has changed.

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We all lose focus or have a brief moment of jealously or envy at some point in our lives. The important thing is to address it head on and refocus as quickly as possible.

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"We are sun and moon, dear friend; we are sea and land. It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is: each the other's opposite and complement." - Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund