explain the line"If you compare yourself with others, you become vain and bitter"?

Question

the line coming from the desederata poem

Answer 1

if you compare yourself with others you are never happy or you are really happy. you can become bitter if say someone has more money than you and you are jealous. or vain if you think you are better than someone else.

Answer 2

thats because there is always someone else better than yourself. so if you compare yourself to someone better you always come up short no matter how hard you try thus becoming vain; and after you have failed you get frustrated for a long period of time. leading to bitterness

Answer 3

You will become vain comparing yourself to those you consider inferior and you will become bitter when comparing yourself to those you consider superior in some way.

Answer 4

With the focus being on one's "self," you find yourself either better or worse than others.
The ones you find yourself better than you make you self-conscious about your shortcomings, and it's easy to become bitter about your station in life.

Conversely, the ones that you find are worse than you, gives you a sense of aloofness and pride, filling you with false, vain images of your station in life.

The key to finding a balance is to make others the focus of your life, rather than "self."

Answer 5

there will always be someone smarter, richer, sexier, funnier and if we get in the rut of always comparing ourselves and trying to change ourselves to what we like or see that we perceive as being better then we will lose ourselves. different is good. be comfortable and confident in your own unique self. otherwise, we will be jealous, bitter and always resentful, wanting more. there is peace in acceptance of self.

Answer 6

because when you want to be like someone, you try to change. then if you see someone even better looking, you try to change even more and you start to focus on physical beauty more often.
and then more often and more, and then you have to be the best because it becomes an obsession.