It’s easier to struggle in winter, I get it. It rains, the temperatures are low, it gets dark at around four. Inner turmoil finds itself reflected in the outside world to such an extent that they almost blend together; it becomes incredibly hard to distinguish where one begins and the other ends. And instead of fighting against it, some of us – most of us – ease into forgetfulness and into the fallacy that it was winter itself that causes us to suffer so.
As spring ushers the winter away, dissipating the darkness and the cold, there’s the expectation that our turmoil should dissipate too. In the most fortunate cases, that expectation is met. But in others, it isn’t. The latter occurrence is frequent, but for some reason not discussed enough.
Why is it that when the sun comes out it is possible to still feel low? There are many reasons: some clinical, some merely subjective, but for a lot of us it is very much a matter of comparison and pressure. Both are social in nature.
We’ve all heard the saying: “Comparison is the thief of joy,” but what does it really mean? How is comparison linked to unhappiness? How does it particularly affect us in spring? Let us unpack it a little.
As the essay “The Why, Who, and How of Social Comparison” puts it, “whenever people try to determine how they themselves are or what they themselves can and cannot do, they do so by comparing their own characteristics, fortunes, and weaknesses to those of others.” In other words, social comparison is the tendency to relate one’s perceived sense of self to the perceivable sense of self of others. The key words here are ‘perceived,’ ‘perceivable,’ and ‘sense.’
Comparison originates from our perceptions and senses: two parts of ourselves that are extremely subjective and fickle. This is another thing which we often forget, and which leads us to believe that our comparative inner voice is but the voice of truth. Indeed, comparison has direct access to our belief system, which is how it can not only observe and compile our similarities or differences from others, but also draw conclusions on what those imply, mean, and make of us.
For instance, should a friend have a busier social life than us during spring, our comparison would point that out to us. Our senses would make us feel sad or even embarrassed, and our newly formed belief would force us into thinking that there is something inherently wrong with us, that we are less charming, less everything. It works very similarly to a domino effect.
A word of advice? When the comparative voice is inundating our minds, let us try to remind ourselves that perception does not always correspond to the truth, and that our senses should be experienced freely without forcing them into stagnation and beliefs.
On the other topic of pressure, let’s talk about “peer pressure”. Kate Stevenson Clark writes: “Peers can pressure each other – and be pressured – in two main ways. The first is direct […]. The second way is not so obvious. […] Internal peer pressure is the kind of pressure that goes on inside a person. It is pressure you put on yourself to conform.” The latter pressure often occurs in response to our comparative tendencies. If, when comparing ourselves to others, we notice our being or acting different from them, internal peer pressure is triggered, forcing us to change our differences and conform them into sameness. It is an act which is comparable to trying to fit a star-shaped block into a square hole.
For instance, were we to notice that everyone feels happy and extroverted under the spring sun except for ourselves, our internal pressure would force us to be outside and socialize with people in the name of conformity. Whilst this might not be all that negative, it is still a matter of disregard towards our individual differences.
Another word of advice? We should all start to challenge the emotional discomfort which comes from feeling different and remind ourselves that difference is a strength. If spending some time alone is what feels right to you during spring, you should not be pressured into changing that because of the contrary preferences of others.
Hopefully, we now have a better sense of why, how, and what to do on the spring days when the sun is out, but we still feel low.
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