"Comparison is the thief of joy." -Theodore Rosevelt

Here's a riddle for you: There is one game you can play over and over again and always lose. What game is it? The comparison game. I'm sure you've heard this before. But that doesn't stop you from looking at other people and seeing what they have and wishing it was yours and envying that they have something you don't. Even if you end up getting what they have, you won't be 100% content, will you?

There are so many girls in my life that I look at and wish I had what they did.

I wish I lived in her house...

I wish I had her skills...

I wish I had her hair...

I wish I had the love life she has...

I wish I had the clothes she has...

I wish I had the body she has...

In my mind, none of these are things I can obtain. I will never look like her. And I'm right. And that's discouraging.

But I have NO idea what she is going through. She could be struggling with a million different things that I am not struggling with and I would have no idea because we only portray the version of our lives we want people to see on social media. I don't show people the ugly or the raw or the dark corners of my life. I don't want people to see what I'm dealing with behind closed doors. Neither does the girl that I look at and envy the life she has.

Why do I let myself waste so much time on social media and in real life daydreaming about the life I will never have? Why don't I take the time to appreciate what God has already given me? I look around at my life and to me, sometimes it's not enough. Sometimes it's not satisfying me. Sometimes it's not what I want. Why? Why do we look at our lives and not say, "I'm content?"

A couple weeks ago, I was doing my devotional and I opened my bible to a passage of scripture, and it blew me away. It was Phillippians 4:10-12.

"I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want."

Paul wrote this saying he knew what it was to be content, no matter the situation in our lives. We need to be more like Paul. No matter what the girl sitting next to us looks like, she could be dealing with things far worse than us, or far different from us. We need to be content with where God has placed us in our lives because he has a plan. He said, "I want her to be here in life because she will do great things with what I'm giving her." God may be giving us people and situations and events we don't want, but we will take it all in stride and point all our joys and sorrows back to him.