Comparison Is the Thief of Joy

Teddy Roosevelt remarked, "Comparison is the thief of joy." Someone says, "she's not Mireya Luis." Nobody is. 


We can't help ourselves. We compare A and B. But we suffer inherent bias, called endowment bias or the endowment effect. 

We 'overvalue' what is ours, distorting our perception. Owning a coffee mug, we value it at five dollars. Another purchaser, the non-owner, sees the same mug worth three dollars. If we have an 'ownership' stake, we see our child, our team, school, candidate, or brand of dog food as better than the other person's. 

We see parallels elsewhere. Eighty percent of drivers say they're better than average. Our perception of appearance even affects us. "When people thought they were more attractive, they also became more supportive of inequality. For example, they were more supportive of using others to get ahead, and were less likely to donate money to the Occupy movement."

When people tell us about a team or a player, consider our biases, sample size, framing (compared to what), outlier effects, and so forth. For example, Bo Jackson was one of the greatest athletes ever. He set the national high school record for home runs, a Heisman Trophy winner, an NFL and baseball all-star, and set the Alabama high school decathlon record, although he had never seen all the events before the competition. He didn't lift weights. He did pushups and sit-ups. "Bo knows."

Bo Jackson's 1993 and 1994 statistics may look ordinary. He had 29 home runs and a single stolen base in those two years...after a hip replacement. 

I like what I see of the Melrose Volleyball 2018 version. Don't let comparison be the thief of joy.