Comparison: The Enemy of your Loving Self

 

A lot many of us are unhappy—and naturally less loving—because of the perpetual feeling of loss and failure. Well, a lot of it has to do with our comparison of our situation and standing with others instead of the actual placement of things. Looking at the brighter suns, we get blinded and go into low self-esteem and self-reproach. It makes us terribly discontented and unhappy. To make it still scarier, it’s the worst diagnosis for one’s loving self.

Lyanla Vanzant: “Comparison is an act of violence against the self.”

We have this terrible propensity to add to the weight of sadness and pain inside us. And the simplest mode of adding to our woes is unnecessarily comparing us to others. By prioritizing comparison over your uninfluenced action, you surrender a part of your free will. It is a vital resource. You just jab your own confidence by bruising your self-love. A detached attitude gives you freedom. Comparison basically is a bug that sickens your spirits. Long before you beat others, you berate your own self. You get into sickened imaginations and enter a whirlpool of impracticality.

Comparison is the most irksome short-cut to unhappiness. Almost 90% of the time, we are comparing ourselves with people better placed than us. No wonder a crippling feeling of inadequacy sinks in. Under the glorious sun of their hyper-achievement, you writhe with your somewhat real, but majority of imagined, inadequacies.

Well, the imperious combo of compare and compete beats the hell out of our compassionate self. I am not saying don't compete. Do it with all your capability. But remove the indoctrinated vice of comparison from it. All we can do is to compare our former self with the present one to see the degree of change. Be your own comparison.

Gerald Jampolsky: “Love is the total absence of fear. Love asks no questions. Its natural state is one of extension and expansion, not comparison and measurement.”

So walk slowly, look within, and reach your goal with a smile; you will beat the fastest runner. Qualitatively I mean, since walking to the goal-post with a lovely smile and loadful of loving self makes you the real winner. We just need to change the evaluation of victory. The system may take a generation to bring out such qualitative changes; meanwhile, we can begin with the self.

The moment you grasp the meaning and purpose of your life, you become indispensable for the scheme of things around. You become a requirement for this whole universe. You are no longer a burden for this cosmos to drag on. You just don’t survive accidentally. Yours becomes a planned journey, shaping and reshaping the environment not just for meeting your end, but also carrying the effects that go onto touch many lives around.

The sea cannot survive without its tiny drop. Suppose a drop goes missing, the sea gets a hole in its heart and it just cannot afford to miss its drop. Similarly, this universe cannot sustain the hole left by you. It sustains by you as much as you sustain by it. The only condition being that you live consciously, that you know what you are doing, that you pick an option only after deliberating over it. In this manner you bring full justice to your consciousness.

From chance living to well-meant steps purposeful for the self and the larger humanity, all it takes is a small realization. Just look back and see the trail of decisions you have taken in life. How many of these were taken consciously, you being fully aware of the range of options? How many of these were just pushed on you by the random happenings and chance occurrences?

Unfortunately, a vast majority of our options are born of random throws by chance factors and we just grabbing some involuntarily. And a life dictated by uncalculated, random options and opportunities, hits and mis-hits ends in a confusing travel across the endless twists, turns, U-turns and back outs from dead ended streets like in the puzzle game. We get wasted and wearied in endless turns, re-turns and U-turns, always pushed on by the random factors that happen to spin out of the lot. No wonder, even after travelling a whole lifetime, we are still near the point of start. We feel we haven’t done anything at all. It’s the puzzling zigzag. It cannot be called a path leading to your destiny.

Across the serpentine criss-crossing and entangled turns of random paths and choices, there are most suitable paths laid out for all of us. All we need to do is to start living consciously. Don’t allow generalizations drawn out of comparison of your situation with others to be your guiding principle. Walk slowly but mindfully. You may see others hurtling fast on the racetrack around you, raising dust, crashing into sidelines, shouting with trophies at some corners, but mind you, no journey is complete and meaningful if one doesn’t feel contentment at the end. No journey across the blizzard of accidental turns can result in peace that you are looking for at the end of the day.

So plan your journey even if it means walking slowly. You can even delay your onslaught on the exams or other important tasks of life by a year if you decide to go into self reflection, weighing your abilities and limitations, all this while keeping a close look at the competition. It’s better to watch from a distance first. It’s better to walk slowly if you know what you are doing.

Mindless dash towards the finish line has no meaning at all. Stop if you have been running. Pause if you have been mindlessly allowing yourself to be held by the collar by the monster called life. Sit down if you have been standing for too long. And then look around and think. Look at the zigzag pattern of your senseless run so far. The actual distance covered will surely be very short.

Walk slowly like a wise man. A wise man walking slowly will still beat a reckless sprinter at the end of the day. It’s better to walk slowly to the finish-line, with your breath still under control, your legs still able to carry you. The end becomes meaningful, preparing you for the next journey. Running out of breath to the end line, and crashing straightaway has no meaning. This is no victory. This is not the destination. It’s not meeting the goal. It simply means collapsing. The whole journey turns meaningless.

Victory means being able to smile after reaching the destination. So stop, look back, see the mindless work and the stampede, pause for a moment, look ahead and walk to your sweet goal with a smile on your lips. You become a winner instantly.