Hi everyone, welcome back! In my last week’s post, I talked about money and how so many of us feel the need to have more probably because when we look around and compare ourselves with others, others seem to have more than us. As a result what we are unconsciously or consciously trying to do is to prove to ourselves and to the rest of the world that we are better than everyone else if we can have more than them! So, since my last week’s post, I have been thinking about how, why, where and when do we get the idea about comparing ourselves and our lives with others and why do we have this NEED to be better than others because even research has shown that if humans collaborate rather than compete, it produces amazing results. So, here is my belief for this week.
Belief: If I earn more or have more/better material things than my friends and peers, it would mean that I am better than them and that would make me feel good about myself and my life!
If you are human, chances are this is something you believe in. The extent you choose to believe in this belief and live your life based on the kind of thinking that accompanies this belief may differ, however, this is a belief that’s prevalent in every part of the world no matter where you live. Somehow I find it so interesting that even though we are the same species; instead of valuing each other and loving each other and helping each other, we compete with each other, deceive each other, harm each other, and do unspeakable things to each other. Interestingly, we need other people to fail, to be miserable in their lives, to be poor so that we can feel good about ourselves and our own lives. And the reason I say this is because we compare our happiness, our sorrows, our bank balances, and even our kids. And if we personally are not comparing; there will always be a well-wisher, a friend, a family member who will do that on our behalf!
So, have you ever wondered how, when, why and where did humans learn to compare and compete? Well, here is my take on this. Do you remember your childhood when your parents told you to study harder just like your brother or sister because unlike you, your sibling was getting better grades? Do you remember when a teacher in your class asked you to behave a certain way just because they didn’t agree with the way you behaved, and in asking you to change your behavior, they let you know that this other kid behaves so well and you should behave like them? So, now if you can just imagine for a second that here is this tiny little kid who is creating beliefs, learning to express themselves and trying so hard to understand how to be in this very overwhelming and confusing world, and as they encounter either a parent or teacher or any well-wisher or family member saying these things to them, they start creating a belief in their minds that if they behave better than this other kid or if they get more grades than their sibling, the adults that they are trying so hard to please will be actually be very happy. Thus begins the learning of a belief which really shapes the way this little kid thinks about living life, what it means to be successful, what they can do to be liked by someone etc. etc. and sadly this little kid carries those beliefs into adulthood. In addition, these situations also create another belief, which is, they are not enough the way they are today, so, they need to learn to be better! More on this second part next time.
But you know folks, the irony in all this is that these parents, teachers, well-wishers or family members don’t even mean any harm to this kid! They actually think that by comparing this kid with other kids, they are trying to encourage this little human into behaving better, doing better, performing better. However, what they don’t realize they are doing, either unconsciously or consciously is that they are teaching their kids that in order to be liked by adults, they need to be better than every other kid out there including their own siblings! And this is the beginning of the decline of a kid’s self-esteem. And it not only affects their self-esteem, it kills their beautiful spirit and extinguishes their light that they came to earth with. And in your defense, you do whatever you do because like most humans you may also be absolutely crazy about intelligence and beauty and again like most humans you also tried your whole life to come across as intelligent and look beautiful and as a result tried so desperately to fit into the ‘things’ that society places value on and that’s exactly what you are repeating with your own kids.
So, you may now be thinking, wait a minute, isn’t this how most kids are raised or have been raised in the past. So, is she really saying that all these parents, teachers, well-wishers and family members have been doing it wrong all these years/decades/centuries? Well, I honestly think, yes, we have been doing it wrong all this while! And you have the right to not agree with what I just said but I want to make it very clear that I am not being arrogant and I am not judging anyone for doing what they have been doing because like I mentioned in a previous post, chances are that’s exactly what all these adults grew up learning and therefore that’s what they know to be right. And like Maya Angelou once said, when you know better, you do better, similarly, it’s just that these adults were not even aware of the damage they could do to these little humans when they compared them!
I know this is a very sensitive topic that touches a lot of nerves and many of you may still not agree with what I just said. So, I am going to try to give you an example from an adult life and maybe that will help you understand my point. Imagine that you have a boss who has very high expectations from you and one of their strategies to encourage you to achieve those expectations is to compare you with their best performers. So they may say something like this to you – you know this project that I have assigned to you, which you have taken so many months to work on, if I had given this same project to this other employee, they would have done it in a couple of weeks. And this boss may say something like this on purpose or maybe unconsciously to encourage you into doing a better job. In either case, my point is, when you hear this, would you actually feel motivated and encouraged to perform better? Or, would you feel like crap thinking that your manager values another employee over you and thinks that this other employee does a better job than you could ever do? And this is exactly what you are doing when you compare your kids with other kids or their own siblings.
Okay, so now that you know what you know and if you agree with my perspective, are you thinking it’s already too late and you have already done the damage to your kids? I am no parenting expert, however, I do know that if you decide to change the way you have been interacting with your kids, it could still be very positive for them even though they themselves may be adults now and raising their own kids. You could share your new knowledge with your adult kids so that they learn new ways of interacting with their kids because the change has to start from somewhere. And for those of us who have young kids, we still have this huge opportunity to tell our kids again and again that they are good enough exactly the way they are and we love them just because they are who they are. This however will not work if you yourself don’t believe in what you are trying to communicate to your kids. And if you don’t believe in it, you need to first understand what’s blocking you in accepting your kids and loving them the way they are today instead of hoping that they were like someone else’s kids. And do you know why you are unable to accept your own kids? Maybe because you don’t accept yourself. And maybe the reason you don’t accept yourself is because growing up, your parents didn’t completely accept you. And you are just repeating that with your own kids! As I mentioned before, more on this next time.
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
