Comparisons,
it is said, are odious. And yet this is the criterion we use to judge every
aspect of our lives. We keep in mind a frame of reference for almost everything
– happiness, success, peace, pleasure, pain. You may be successful, but
another’s greater success makes you uncomfortable. The mind has an inbuilt
comparative calculator.
You
are good only so long as you are not pitched against someone better. And bad,
till someone worse comes along. Your child’s 97 per cent marks are celebrated
till you realise another classmate scored 97.5 per cent. The focus now shifts
to the half percentage more the child could have achieved.
Comparisons
are at the heart of sibling rivalry. Parents pitch children against each other
in a bid to push them. This creates feelings of inadequacy and a lifelong habit
of focussing on others, rather than bettering your own lot. Work culture is
vitiated by comparisons of salary, perks, bonus and allocation of work.
How
sad is it that in order to get an idea of your own worth, you look towards
others. Your children’s worth is decided by whether your neighbour’s kids got
into an IIT or IIM.
Comparisons
indeed make choices and aspirations fickle. They set the pace of your life,
your benchmarks and aspirations. Its the way we all are brought up and choose
to remain.
And
to make matters worse, our comparative canvas increased manifold with social
media. People post pictures of holidays, their emotional states. And invariably they put up the happy stuff,
giving us all unrealistic benchmarks. Psychological studies reveal that people
are more likely to share positive rather than negative emotions, and that we
all overestimate the positive states of others and fall to detect negativity.
Put the two together, and you realise what an unrealistic picture we are
presented with – a doctored reality !
and it is against this unrealistic image that we pitch our own life’s
reality. Result ? An unrealistic aspiration and guaranteed frustration.
Of
course, comparisons can be used to motivate you too. Used intelligently,
comparisons can lead to a greater intellectual effort and stimulation of mental
and physical power. It is only by comparison that you arrive at a process of selection
that leaves you with the best, doing away with the not so good. To give a
simple example from everyday life – when you buy vegetables and fruits, you go
for the best, but how do you establish the best ? By comparing one to another.
That
is the basis for Natural Selection too. The comparatively stronger survive,
thus ensuring the species evolve and get healthier as time goes by. The
problem, however, is that comparisons are hardly ever made apple to apple;
mostly it is lemons and or oranges that we compare. Is it surprising then that
this leads to highly frustrated states ? compare yourself to the incomparable
and you have a recipe for disaster. Comparisons can be a critical trigger for
growth and motivation, but the danger is they can also cast us into depression
and de-motivate us with self-doubt.
It
is important to maintain the stability of your own identity, even as you
attempt to benefit from the fluidity of a comparison. A knowledge based on such
evolved criteria for comparison would be more sophisticated and progressive
than blind comparisons with anyone in sight. As Einstein said, Everybody is a
genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live
its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
Comments