Today as I worked on prepping packages, I was listening to a past sermon where PJ preached on the Pharisee and the tax collector. He pointed out that the Pharisee did not recognize his own privilege. Even worse, he compared himself to the tax collector (who had far less privilege) to prop up his self-esteem and make himself feel better.
“God forbid that our self-esteem is connected to other human morons like ourselves.” -PJ
For most of my life, I lived it comparing myself to other people. Like it was always at the forefront of my mind. Up until I was 17, then I realized that OTHER people were comparing themselves to me. Which was sad. Because I knew how I really was on the inside so why would anyone want to do that!? Then I thought, huh this is so stupid that we’re comparing ourselves to one another.
So I stopped. Or at least, I wasn’t as obsessive as I used to be. That’s when I feel like I started living a little.
And I know I had privilege. My parents reminded me of it a lot. Studying what I wanted was a privilege. Studying MUSIC was an even greater privilege. Studying music abroad was the greatest privilege they could afford me.
But that didn’t stop me from comparing myself to other people still from time to time. Happens till now even though I’m a full-grown adult (I blame you, Instagram!)
It’s crazy though. Comparing myself against other people = comparing my privilege against theirs. And accordingly my self-esteem will fluctuate depending on who I’m comparing myself with.
Someone worse off – I feel like I’m doing better than them so I feel good. Someone better off – I feel like I suck so I feel down. That’s codependence.
I’m writing all this out to make sense of codependence. We talk a lot about building healthy individuals and healthy relationships here. And it’s impossible to build truly healthy relationships if we are codependent with one another. Our lives can be deeply entwined without being codependent. We can be interdependent in a loving community without being codependent.
But I need to do my work of figuring out what codependence is and how that shows up in my life. And that particularly applies to marriage. I never want to be codependent with KC because we both deserve better. God created us to love and support one another, not at the expense of our own selves.
The irony is that the church teachings I grew up with generally extol sacrificing yourself for the sake of others. So much unlearning to do. Well, I have a lifetime 🙂
learn and live 