Leon Festinger originally proposed The Social Comparison Theory in 1954.

The basics of this theory is that individuals have an internal drive to evaluate themselves to others.

He goes on to theorize that the drive to compare reduces as when there is diversity.  “People tend to move into groups of similar opinions and abilities, and they move out of groups that fail to satisfy their comparison drive.”

The theory suggests that while people do improve their abilities through comparison, they do not change their views significantly through the same process.

I think this is true to an extent. People compare themselves to things they want and have commonalities with. I don’t think it’s human nature to compare ourselves to people or accomplishments that we don’t desire.

Now how does this translate into the big picture of dispelling comparison?

Because we compare to what we want it seems that the only way to solve this is either want fewer things or start improving yourself to match your comparison.