“Be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” –– Lao Tzu
Throughout my life, I have periodically pulled out that old societal yardstick to measure myself. As a woman who has never married or had children, who hasn’t built a powerful career, dedicated her life to a cause or earned a lot of money, I always come up lacking. The ruler then becomes my invitation to see how I have fallen short in life.
One recent example was when (again) I was feeling that my youth was misspent in an unhealthy relationship with a man. A spiritual counselor suggested that I turn my focus to what I had accomplished during that time rather than what I didn’t. Despite this good advice, I struggled to shift my focus from the negative. I could not let go of the yardstick.
THE FOLLY OF COMPARISON
Comparing our paths to those of others can “stop us from doing what we want, love, and need to express,” says Noelle Sterne, Ph.D. Indeed, such comparisons are known to create competitive behavior. Outside the arena of sports, these feelings can become toxic, leaving one to feel inadequate.1
Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, says that, in competition, we focus on the wrong things –– others and their accomplishments. Her solution is to follow where “our inner guidance is nudging us [to go].” Doing so, we can see possibilities that we are blind to when in competition.2
THE GAME OF CROQUET
That all sounds good. But how do I hang up this yardstick that I find myself tripping over from time to time for good? Surprisingly, one idea comes from my eight-year-old great nephew, Zack.
Earlier this year, I hosted a family party at my house. Along with setting up a net for family members to play badminton, I set up a croquet set. Never having set up such a game, I read the instructions. They were very specific. So, I brought out a yardstick, spacing the wickets as directed.
As the afternoon of the party unfolded, I walked through the side yard where I had so carefully laid out the game of croquet to find that Zack had pulled up all the wickets. He was re-arranging them haphazardly throughout the yard.
“It was too easy, the way you had it,” he said.
So much for following instructions.
A BOY’S WISDOM
Now, my little nephew is very smart, and I wondered if I could take his approach to the game of croquet and apply it to my life. To my eyes, the croquet court he designed was crazy, but it was how he wanted to play the game. And at no point did he need a yardstick. Could I be so daring, so trusting, in my own way of living? Certainly I have charted my own course for many years. Family and friends will tell you I have always gone my own way.
So why am I periodically full of doubts, thinking that I haven’t done what I wanted to do or, perhaps, incarnated to do? Why do I keep pulling out the yardstick? And why did I think it was important to follow the directions that came with the croquet set?
THE FOUR STAGES
To be honest, I was relieved to have the instructions because I had no idea how to set up a game of croquet. But to constantly rely on directions to the letter is an example of circling back to the cleaning up stage of spiritual development.
Drawing upon Ken Wilbur’s stages of moral and spiritual development –– Cleaning Up, Growing Up, Waking Up, and Showing Up –– Richard Rohr teaches that Cleaning Up is often caught up in the “preoccupations of the dominant culture,” which, in turn, have shaped the teachings of our religious institutions. And that involves the need to conform.
Likewise, Growing Up, while a more advanced stage, continues to allow social structures to “highly color, strengthen, and limit how much we can grow up.” We begin Waking Up when confronted with any spiritual experience that turns us from any striving for perfection to surrendering to the love of God. And, finally, we are able to Show Up when we bring “our heart and mind into the actual suffering and problems of the world.”3
TRUE MEASURE
Just as Zach re-arranged the wickets to play as he wanted, I can hang up the yardstick and follow my own inner voice. In other words, I can wake up. I can show up. Yes, I have made missteps in life, but there is much that I have accomplished for the good. I need to own that. I want to own that. And owning that is how I put the yardstick away once and for all.
As a woman dedicated to self-reflection, I have always found wisdom –– and comfort –– in the words of Socrates: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” But now I know, neither is the life that is continually measured and found wanting.
FOR REFLECTION: Do your periodically find yourself tripping over your own yardstick? Make a list of what you have accomplished in life. Be sure to include random acts of kindness. Pick three items and write a story about a person who accomplished the same and how those accomplishments enriched the lives of others. Reflect on this story and how it compares to your own life and the differences you have made in the lives of others.
1 Noelle Sterne, Ph.D., “Kicking the Competition,” Spirituality & Health: A Unity Publication (July/August 2025), 19.
2 Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1992), 173.
3 Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations, June 1, 2021. https://cac.org/daily-meditations/four-shapes-of-transformation-2021-06-01/
Top image: Pixabay/Nadja Donauer
Midtext image: Pixabay/Christoph Lindner
Side image: Pixabay/Avelino Calvar Martinez
