Thu, 28 Mar, 2024

Stop it!! Comparison is not healthy.

By Ashmita Kunwar

Does comparison in life truly influence you? What do you think? When our parents compare us with someone who topped the university and say, “just see your brother, where has he reached but you have done nothing, shame on you.”  Our teachers comes in class and again say, “Look at your friend’s scores; he is brilliant but what about you?”  Every one of us is accustomed with these dialogues. When you hear such things how do you feel?  Motivated, depressed, embarrassed, disgraceful, pressurized…..what else? None of us feel motivated. I can admit this instead, you feel pressurized to do something with shameful and the depressed mind. This is not a good sign, nothing good comes from this.  Doing something in pressure will not ever give you what you want in your life, instead it takes away your happiness, self-confidence, your uniqueness and your personality. It is not only our parents and teachers who compare your weaknesses with someone’s goodness.  We ourselves are correspondingly involving in this comparison with other’s strength. Comparison is a source of unhappiness and dissatisfaction in life.  The most common slipup that we commit most often is comparing our capability, our happiness, our success, our beauty, our home, our job and many more with that of others when we are living two different lives and following two different journeys. This is injudicious thing that we ever do in our life. It is human nature to compare ourselves with others, but nothing positive comes out of this. Comparison is never a healthy practice, because we compare our worst with the best of others, there is never an end to comparison, comparison is the death of the joy. Life can never be graded by comparison. Each one of us is born unique, we are only one of a kind in this world and none of us are alike.  We have our own aptitude and unique characters which are different from other people around us. There is no point in associating ourselves with someone else; we are two different people with different capacity and talent. Some of us are good in doing one thing and some in else; so, what’s the point? Sometimes we might compare our best with someone’s worst. It is also not a rational decision to make. At that situation we might feel proud, end up by taking, showing our accomplishments more than necessary and no one appreciates that. We might criticize others trying to make them feel down because we feel superior to them. With comparison, we never get to really know who we are and who others are. The most important thing is what we think about our life and what perceptions do we have? Compare our past and the present, how far have we come in our life? Analyze in which direction we are now with the resolution that we made yesterday? We are in the state of creation and expansion every day. Limiting comparison within ourselves will always encourage us and make us feel happy. Comparing ourselves with others is an inaccurate and irrelevant measuring stick. It forces you to lose your uniqueness; you want to be like others, you want to live others life leaving your life behind. Try to know the importance of your own life, know how precious your life is and feel proud to be who you are. We have our own journey to make; we are here with different purpose. Instead of looking only at our weaknesses, look at our strength. Be proud with what you have, celebrate it and use it to get the best out of it in your life. Always focus on what you are blessed with, think how lucky you are to have people around, who care about you, and love you. Be happy that you are unique and no one is like you. At times, we might find someone less capable than us; at that time we should not misuse our strength and push him/her down. Instead, support him/her; that way, we will gain more success and happiness on our side. Always keep in mind that none of us are perfect, we have to be ok with our imperfections. Life is too short to compare it with others and think that they are better than us. We have only one life and should live it to the fullest in our own style. Once you realize that you are doing comparison then stop at the moment, don’t feel bad, just acknowledge yourself, come back to your path, live your own life and pursue your own journey. You are living your life every day, don’t compare it, enjoy it, live it!