The whole and its parts

The whole & its parts

About comparing

Lately Rohan from A learning a day shared two learnings related to comparing. At first sight, they could even have been seen as contradictory. But there are nuances in the way we act that are the result of mindset.

The first point Rohan made was that spending time comparing oneself with others is not only lost time, it is also energy-consuming. It just doesn’t serve us. Naturally, comparing here isn’t about being inspired by others. Energy-consuming comparing is about searching for ways to feel superior or inferior to someone else. It essentially means that others define our sense of wellbeing.

The second learning Rohan shared was an idea of how to pull oneself out of a situation where things went wrong. It’s the simple reminder, that things could be much worse. Whatever happened it is possible to imagine something more disastrous. And I’ve often heard people us that approach, in doing so they would look at events others experienced, the situation others have been in, etc. These people were comparing themselves with others in the hope to feel better.

A different approach is to think of it as looking at the facts and taking stock of reality. How do you feel? What happened? What was lost? Is that the worst thing that could have happened to you? Quite often, what we lost is a hope or a dream. The hope to have a peaceful day, the dream to achieve something extraordinary on that day, … So maybe what we lost is something we didn’t really have.

 

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