Comparison has been called the thief of joy. Measuring ourselves against others can sap the fun out of life and rattle our mental health. In one moment, we feel superior. The next, a torpedo broadsides our ego.

So, apologies in advance. I’m about to take you on that ride.

The good news is that we won’t be talking about your brother always beating you at pickleball or how your immaculate lawn always compares so well to your neighbor’s, which looks to be tended by a colony of prairie dogs. No, we will measure the Tampa Bay area against other metro areas.

For years , the Tampa Bay Partnership has authored the Regional Competitiveness Report with the Community Foundation Tampa Bay and the United Way Suncoast. Some city comparisons base their findings on flimsy data. Not this one. The partnership’s study released in February, analyzes dozens of categories, from crime rates to the number of patents awarded. It then compares Tampa Bay against 19 other similar metro areas — places like Orlando, Denver, Seattle, Minneapolis and St. Louis.

Starting with the highlights: The Tampa Bay area ranked in the top 5 metro areas in eight indicators. It has comparatively low overall and violent crime rates and good air quality. Our area also vaulted to the top of the rankings for how quickly it grew the amount of merchandise it exports.

The Tampa Bay area was No. 1 in net migration, a fancy way of saying that people still want to move here. Not everyone sees that as a good thing, but economically, it’s better than the pain of a shrinking population. The expanding tax base should help us resolve some of our challenges.

Tampa Bay also placed in the top 5 in the rate of businesses starting up, as did the Orlando and Miami areas. (Jacksonville, the other Florida metro area in the rankings, placed ninth.) The strong Florida showing underlines the state’s business-friendly environment.

The Tampa Bay area also improved against itself in many other categories, even if it didn’t gain ground against the other cities in the rankings. In fact, the report’s authors said the area improved year-over-year in 43 of the 67 indicators. That’s great. We got better, at least when measured against ourselves. Soak in the adulation. Puff out our chest a little.

Unfortunately, here comes the torpedo.

In 28 indicators, the Tampa Bay area ranked in the bottom five. More than three-quarters of the time, we failed to crack the top half. We improved against ourselves, but many of the other cities still ate our lunch in far too many ways.

That’s how comparisons can squelch our fun.

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The Tampa Bay area finished last in gross regional product per person, median household income and the rate of people ages 25-64 working or looking for work. All three are valuable measures of a local economy’s vibrancy.

The report also reconfirmed that our area isn’t affordable. Paying people in abundant sunshine no longer works, not when our region ranks in the bottom five for housing and transportation costs. It used to be that we didn’t score well because we didn’t pay well. Now, it’s both — our wages remain comparatively low, and the cost of housing has skyrocketed.

Our rates of poverty, food insecurity and foster care placements are comparatively high, the study showed. We also kill pedestrians and cyclists at a higher rate than any of the other 19 cities.

Only Jacksonville had a lower rate of people using public transit, and the Tampa Bay area has many people who spend at least an hour commuting one way to work. The study also found that they do it on roads with some of the worst pavement conditions.

The Tampa Bay area ranked low in various education categories, including associate, bachelor and professional degrees, and degrees in science, technology, engineering and math. Tampa Bay ranked seventh in the rate of people ages 24-34 moving into the area, though only 17th in the rate of people in that age group who hold at least a bachelor’s degree. A well-trained and well-educated workforce can help attract the kind of businesses that pay the salaries that would make our area more competitive against those other cities. Those higher salaries would also make it more affordable to live here.

The Tampa Bay Partnership has warned against using the findings as a comprehensive scorecard. Instead, the report can be a blueprint for moving forward. It can help identify which areas need more work and which efforts aren’t working well. It can act as a wake-up call.

Still, a ranking of 20 metro areas lends itself to comparisons — and this one isn’t flattering.

In fact, it’s stealing our joy.