comparing and not comparing

BYU's fall 2019 magazine has a great article on comparison. Just look it up. But here are my notes:

• "God makes no horizontal comparisons....He compares me only with me" and I should do the same. Comparing me with my past self, but not with others. This mindset can help me only compare myself to myself and not to others--when others perform or achieve higher than I do, I can still glorify God by the things that I accomplished or learned or how I grew from an experience, and be grateful for that.
• "God cheers on every runner, calling out that the race is against sin, not against each other." (Holland)
• How to overcome comparison:
• Be mindful of our tendency to compare. Think about it and sit with it and notice what it might lead to and what it is coming from. Comparisons most often are based on falsehoods and "faulty premises, both of other's making and of our own making." I'm only seeing part of the picture. No one is better than another person.
• Korihor said that people prosper because of their own genius and strength--but this certainly isn't true, because 1) circumstance/privilege (side note: "this does not mean that we simply acquiesce to biological determinism or circumstantial determinism, nor wallow in defeatism. Agency is a reality and an incomparable endowment. But can we see why comparisons just are not fair--to us or to others? There are too many variables involved.") and 2) our blessings from God, especially the Savior's saving Atonement. "It is by graced that ye are saved" even "after all we can do."
• Also, Ether 12:27 says God gives us weakness, not weaknesses. Weakness and mortality make us humble. 
• Recognize, with childlike celebration, the good fortune of others. Think of Eloise being excited for something that Conley does, instead of being discouraged in herself. 
• "We don't discover humility by thinking less of ourselves; we discover humility by thinking less about ourselves." (Uchtdorf) "Doesn't this description just fit the image of the Son of God" washing feet, sitting with the poor and sinful, etc.
• When we think of others more than ourselves, and pray for charity for them, the Lord will bestow this gift on us. "Charity renders powerless this temptation to compare." Love that quote. The Savior, the best of all, strives to make us equal with Him. 
• It's OK when we fail with this. It's important that we keep attempting. 
• "We might think that God wanted simply obedience to a set of rules: whereas He really wants people of a particular sort." C.S. Lewis
• In tiny, daily ways we purify our motives, pray for love and grace, think of others, remember how God views me, only compare myself with myself, glory gratefully in the progress I've made, and slowly become more secure and more like Christ.