Freedom is when I am not COMPARED to others

I am a unique soul born as a beautiful baby.  I am totally loved for who I am, how cute I am and how amazingly smart I am for my age.  Even the slightest silly thing I do is cute, or a short word that I might speak would light up the whole room. There is no expectation from me as a child. I am free to be me.   

But one fine day that freedom of being me is taken away. I am suddenly a grown up kid that now starts going to school.  Suddenly my life is now surrounded with people who gauge me, my goodness, my abilities etc. based on the people around me.  Suddenly I am entered into this lifelong world of competition where people strive to be better than others.   Maybe everyone who registered my name for this competition had good intentions in their minds for me, maybe they wanted me to see my potential and become my best.  However, I will say, it wasn't the most encouraging place to be in. It didn't even motivate me to strive for anything. 

So you may ask “What am I talking about?”  Well I am talking about the time when suddenly  everything I did was just not good enough.  Suddenly I was compared with everyone around me.  My siblings, my cousins, my neighbors, my friends and even my fellow classmates were all being compared against me.   Everyone started to notice that my grades were not as good, or I was very different from my siblings or I didn't eat as well as they did.  Who knows, maybe they were all too well behaved and never got in trouble.  They were capable of being the gold and silver medalist of the school but I did not even stand a chance amongst the first 100. I wasn't the best cook coming out of college. I wasn't  the strongest person because I cried at other’s pain let alone mine.  

I wasn't the best at a lot of things in life because I was still learning from my experiences. And the well-wishers that I was surrounded with never missed a single chance to point out things that were different in me.  Truly, my being different almost didn't sound as a compliment.   I was totally confused. Was this all being done for my good? If so why didn’t it feel like that?  I think everyone truly loved me and was doing their best to motivate me because they may have seen the potential in me that I didn’t see. I was confused.

My questions were all over the place.  Why is there such competition? Why do I have to be better than or like my siblings? Why do I have to be better than my neighbor’s kid or my cousin? Why do I have to be the best in this whole wide world? Why do I have to score the most, do every activity that every child is doing out there? Why do I have to prove my unique self?  Am I living my life or am I living other’s lives?   Who am I competing against? Why am I not allowed to be who I am? And when will I win? Or will I never win?  There are no rules to this game.  The comparison chapter in life comes and goes.

I am writing this today because I have seen that there is competition everywhere.  Maybe healthy competition is good, but only to the point where the individual’s self- confidence is not broken.  It’s only good till the child doesn’t feel lonely and doesn’t feel that they are not good enough just the way they are.  Be mindful of the difference between PRAISING, CRITICIZING and COMPARING.  If you really wish good for someone you care about and wish to show them their potential please learn to point it out with care and love and not with comparison to anyone or anything.  Point it out such that you are not demeaning or putting the person down.  Don’t pass comments just because you feel you have to say something.  PRAISE someone for what they are and think before you CRITICIZE for what the person isn’t.  

I understand this very well and I don’t think I am giving enough justice to this topic in my life. It’s a very sensitive topic for me and I end up feeling that “I am not good enough.”  Not good enough for WHO? FOR WHAT? WHY?

It is a very debilitating feeling when a unique soul who has its own special inner intelligence is declared as not being good enough.   Please don’t do that.  Your  very innocent and funny, but the softest comparison may truly hurt someone including your own little children.  Don’t make anyone feel that they are any LESS than anyone else, even in the simplest form.  I encourage you to AMPLIFY LOVE.  

I’d rather feel that I am GOOD just the way I am and there is more to EXPLORE, there is more to LEARN and there is always room for IMPROVEMENT.  Yes I have the ability to be inspired by people who are better than me, but that can only happen if I am already feeling good about myself.  Also friendly competition and constructive criticism can sometimes bring along freedom in the path ahead.  If I have faith in myself I am able to improve and strive to become better every day.  And I do strive to be on this journey of self-improvement on a daily basis not because people  said so, but because I feel I have more to discover in me and more to give and share with others.

Freedom today for me is when I am not compared with anyone out there and when I stop comparing myself with anyone as well.