Positive Thinking 22 – Cherish your uniqueness – avoid comparing with others

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. Welcome back to our discussion on positive thinking.
We are discussing the sutra Energy, E-N-E-R-G-Y. E, we discussed expectations, cultivate smart expectations. We are now discussing N, Nip, comparing mentality in the padan.
Cherish your uniqueness. Once a person who got frustrated because of feeling that everyone else is better than me. Oh, this student is brighter.
This person is more good looking. This person talks smarter. This person has a better figure.
This person is this. Everybody seems better than me. Got so frustrated that he decided to go to a nearby forest and commit suicide.
As he was going in the forest, he decided, before I commit suicide, I’ll have a heart to heart, one heart to heart talk with God. He said, God, why did you make me? Why have you made me with no abilities at all? I’m just suffering because of this. What is the point of my life? Give me one reason why I should live.
Let me just die. So at that time, suddenly he heard a voice. He said, look at, look around.
There was a fern nearby and there was a bamboo also. He said, long ago, I arranged for both these to be planted. So when the fern was planted, after the person planted them, within a few months, the fern started appearing.
And within a year or so, in the short time thereafter, the fern had spread far and wide and it had covered a significant part of the forest with greenery. On the other hand, the bamboo was barely seen. And then one year passed, two years passed, three years passed.
The bamboo was a bare sapling and went on for years and years. And the person who had sown the bamboo might have thought that this is just a waste. Why am I wasting my time taking care of this bamboo plant? But then for 10 years, within six months, the bamboo shot up and grew up to a giant height in the tree and became the tallest tree in the whole forest.
So that is the way some trees grew. There are Chinese bamboos, especially some of which grow like this. So the point is that each one of us is different.
And because we are different, the ways in which we grow will also be different. What talents we have, which talents will appear when, which talents will take how long to grow. All these things vary according to time, place and circumstance.
When we let ourselves become a slave to a particular definition of success. When we think that success means topping in my class. If I don’t do well in my class, then I’m a failure.
Certainly, we live in a competitive educational system where we do need to do well. But we need to know that we don’t have to have a unidimensional definition of success. When we evaluate success only in terms of marks.
Yes, we do need to study and get good marks. But along with that, all of us are endowed in different ways. And it is not that if you look at the long term in our life, it is not that all those people who topped in their classes also had brilliant careers.
There are many times people who are mediocre performers in terms of academic marks or ranks or grades. But they found their talents and they developed their talents, even if those talents are not in terms of academic performance. And by developing those talents, they achieve outstanding success.
So we, if we wed ourselves to externalized, externally imposed, externally glamorized definitions of success, then we set ourselves up not only for frustration, but also for self-betrayal. Frustration means we cannot conform to others’ definitions of success. Everybody in the class cannot be a topper.
Everybody cannot have an ideal figure. Everybody cannot have the same caliber of speech. But these things are only parts of what make a person successful.
And when we wed ourselves to these externally imposed, externally glamorized definitions of success, then we become blinded to what we have and what we can do to develop what we have. So now we may say, how can I avoid comparing? Yes, we cannot avoid comparing, but we can have constructive comparison instead of destructive comparison. So constructive comparison means we compare with ourselves primarily.
When athletes practice for a sprint, they are not usually competing with other athletes at that time. When they are practicing often, they practice alone. Even if they are practicing with others, others may not be of the very high competitive caliber.
So they primarily compete against the watch. They see how much time did I clock last time and how much I have clocked now. And if they see that the time they are taking for reaching the target, say 100 meters or whatever, then they are improving.
So similarly, in whatever we are doing, some of us, some students say, if you are studying or working, some of us may have a capacity to work for six hours, eight hours continuously. Others may feel tired after working for one hour, may need a break for some time and only then work back again. If you start comparing, oh, why can’t I work like that person? Then we will feel frustrated.
But instead, if we, within that one hour, we see, okay, I can become more attentive. I can become more focused. And yes, instead of working one hour, now I can work with equal energy for one and a half hours.
That is an improvement. So like that, if we, whatever the endeavor that we are doing, if we focus on comparing with ourselves, then we will always be on the path of self-improvement. So God has made all of us unique.
You are unique. As is everyone else. So our uniqueness need not become a matter of pride for us.
It is not that we have to become arrogant because we are unique. But rather, we have to let our uniqueness be a source of our self-security or self-security means that if we look at ourselves, genetically, psychologically, spiritually, each one of us is an individual. And as an individual, we are distinct.
We are distinct from others. We all can make distinctive contributions. Just like in an orchestra, every artist contributes in a different way.
And if a person who is playing a drum starts comparing and craving for someone who is playing the violin or somebody who is playing the harmonium, then the person may not have that particular musical talent. The person can play one’s own instrument well. So like that, we need to focus on what talents we have and develop them.
And sometimes if you feel that I don’t have any talents, then that means we need someone with the talent to discover talents, to observe and note talents. So if we, rather than associating with people who always tell us that you are not good at this, you are not good at that, you are not good at that, we should focus on associating with those who will encourage whatever talents we have. Even if there is a spark, that spark can grow into a bliss.
Our talents can be broadly classified into four categories. Talents, if you consider what we know, what others know. Those talents which we also know and others also know.
Those talents which we know but others don’t know. The talents which others know but we don’t know. And talents which neither we know nor others know.
So actually, rather than having an inferiority complex because of comparing with others, we can make our life into a constant journey of self-discovery by associating with people who are encouraging and by observing our interests and developing our interests. All of us, if we become more spiritual, by spiritual practices, which we will discuss later in our course, but the spiritual practices raise us above the rush and the frenzy of day-to-day life and they enable us to pacify our mind. And then we can observe ourselves with greater perspective and then our perspective is not blinded or distorted by social opinions and then we can observe ourselves better and discover and develop our talents better.
So by remembering that we don’t have to be imitations of someone else. We don’t have to be secondary imitations of someone else. We can be first-rate versions of ourselves.
We can keep improving ourselves in terms of developing the talents that we have and discovering the talents that we have not yet discovered till now and thus we can make optimum contribution and translate our talents into achievements.