Compare and Despair

by Robyn

Back in the day, when Saturday Night Live didn’t suck, there was a skit performed by former cast member and current Minnesota Senator Al Franken called “Daily Affirmation with Stuart Smalley”. The gag was that Stuart, a very fractured persona, ran a self-help program although he was “not a licensed therapist”. This on-going skit spawned many catch phrases, some of which I still tell myself today (snickering the whole time–who knew I’d actually get self-help from a joke about self-help?).

  • “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”
  • “That’s just stinkin’ thinkin!”
  • “You’re should-ing all over yourself.”
  • “I’m a worthy human being.”
  • “Compare and despair.”
This last one has become a mantra of mine for the past, oh, 20 years or so, but who’s counting. As people, and as riders, we are constantly comparing ourselves to others. Some of this is healthy–when doing a dressage test, for instance, we have to compare ourselves to the “ideal” or the “standard”, and indeed, this is how we are judged at competitions. It’s helpful for me to visualize a top rider’s form while I’m riding to help be aware of and correct my faults. (As an aside, I remember watching videos of some top female dressage rider and thinking–”It just looks like she’s sitting up there directing traffic”–another image I use to this day for my riding visualizations.)
.
But too often, we also “compare and despair”. I’m quite guilty of doing this, and while I now recognize it and throw it away before it has a chance to set up residence in my brain, it wasn’t always that way. It started with my first dressage partner, Kryptonite (aka James). James may have been the coolest horse of all time. A 1/4 Clydesdale-3/4 TB, I purchased him as a 15.2 hand yearling and stopped sticking him when he was a hair over 17.0 hands at age 5 because I just didn’t want to know. He had average gaits but the most pleasant and willing disposition with the heart of a giant. He packed my arse around from the age of 3–although I had a coach, she didn’t show much–so we did schooling shows all over northern Virginia and USDF shows at Morven Park usually alone. By and large, we actually were successful, too–James and I got to tour the Dixon Oval at Dressage at Devon in the Materiale for 4 year olds, where we placed 10th out of 19 entries! Also as a 4 year old he placed 5th (out of 45 entries) in Training level at the BLMs and as a 5 year old we again placed 5th in another huge class at the GAIGs at Training, and just narrowly missed placing at First level, but with a respectable 64+%. I could go on and on about James (just ask me!), but it was that near miss at First level at the GAIGs in 2005 that made me realize that by succumbing to “compare and despair” we really do ourselves, and our horses, a disservice and have vowed to not do it again.
.
For all James’ finer points (he never spooked, always tried his best, needed little pre-test schooling, was even and straight and never missed a square halt…), all I could do as I rode around the warm-up was look at all the other horses in my class. I was surrounded by one fancy horse after another–they were all beautiful with big lofty trots and likely big lofty price tags. I began to doubt myself and James and decided we were out-classed before we even got to the ring. So despite qualifying like every other person there, I could only see what we were not and I did not go in there and ride my test like I had all season. As a result, I made two huge mistakes (a jig in the walk and a break in one counter-canter loop–both coefficients and neither of which we had ever done before) in the test. Imagine my devastation when I saw my good score of 64+% just barely putting us in 9th place, landing overall in the middle of the pack. I had “compared and despaired” myself right out of the ribbons. I literally walked back to my stall and cried into James’ neck (I was also 12 weeks pregnant, so I cried a lot anyway :) ) apologizing profusely to him for letting us both down by doubting he was worthy.
.
No matter who you are, there will always be a “fancier” horse than yours. There will always be someone who is a better rider. There will always be someone with more money to train than you. But, “compare and despair”! If you only see what you “lack” compared to those you perceive as better, you will miss all the wonderful things you DO have. We need to ride our horses competing against the dressage standard, striving to do the best we can to match it, and not worry what the other horses are doing.
.
After all, that DQ with the fancy horse is bound to have an off day!
.
.
Advertisement