Tag: comparison

  • Reference Groups for Heroes

    Scott Adams had a very interesting post ‘The Comparison Advantage‘, in which he writes about status related stress when “media is changing our reference group. We’re continuously bombarded with stories about people who are fabulously successful.” I’d add that social media is also a big culprit. According to him, the cure is  “to make sure you’re near the top of at least one reference group in your life.”

    With some difference, this is a thought that had crossed my mind long before I read this. But before we get to that, an interesting thing happened. A couple of posts (in Google Reader) after the above, I came across a post by Nilofer Merchant on HBR Blogs titled “Be Your Own Hero“. Completely contradictory? No. But related and yet different perspectives? Yes. This author asks us to junk the ‘Hero Narrative’ and pushes us to be our own hero by following our own passions and not trying to emulate anyone – a “clarity of purpose” for oneself. One of the proposed mantras is also “I shall not obsess over others’ success”, in addition to doing our bit to co-create the future.

    And now we can come back to my thought. I can relate to Nilofer’s views because that was what led me to leave a cubicle and explore the path of being employed by myself. One and a half years gave me an immense amount of learning, one of which was that even with a well thought out ‘personal purpose’ in hand, it was difficult for me to stop comparing. It really didn’t help that the gestation time for it was quite high, and a ‘need it now’ attitude, probably heightened by social media, also played its part.

    After much thought, I jumped back into a cubicle, before which I rewrote the ‘personal purpose’, in which I attempted to factor in the statustics. Putting a full stop to comparison is a long journey, and I’m already on it. An insight (humour me 😉 ) I had while thinking about the ‘compare feature’ was that so far I had been dependent on one of my identities heavily. Mostly it was my work visiting card. So, when comparing, I wasn’t really acknowledging the other things that I was doing, and doing reasonably well. And that is where I mash Nilofer’s ‘personal purpose’ with Scott Adams’ ‘reference group’. I don’t need to top any of my reference groups, but I need them so that my ‘personal purpose’ is balanced between various activities and relationships. That way, I don’t have to kill myself for not blazing a new trail independently. The cubicle job allows me to work on the things I like to work on; the blogs, social platforms and columns allow me to explore other avenues of interest and gives me a sense of worth, and when I need a hug, there’s D and friends and family. I try to make conscious decisions on each of these, keeping the others in mind. Multiple identities, multiple reference groups, all part of the personal purpose. Early days, but the signs are good.

    until next time, try id out 🙂

  • Stairway to heaven

    A few days back, I came across a line we had used some time back for a brand campaign, as part of some ambient advertising – “Let’s cut climbing stairs, but not climbing ladders”. That ended up prompting quite a surreal thought.

    Of starting to climb a ladder from the time we’re kids. The first few rungs seem easy, there’s someone helping you, and you know that the same someone is there to catch you when you fall. There are others who are climbing ladders too, your friends, some of whom keep up with you while others choose a faster or slower pace. There are those who will leap, knowing all about high risks and huge rewards. There are those who know exactly how much of effort is required to reach where they want to be, and there are those who are unsure, but still know they’ve to climb.

    At some point, when you have climbed quite a bit, you pause to look.  You might realise that the support you had in the beginning is gone, and perhaps replaced with another one. You would look up, perhaps you now know where you have to go, and the steps and pace required to get there. Or you would look down, and see how far you’ve come up. Or you would look sideways, at friends, family, peers who have been climbing too, you might be tempted to compare and consider your efforts and results against what theirs.

    And then perhaps you would just close your eyes, take a deep breath and look within – at what you have, and what you want to have. Maybe you’ll find yourself dissatisfied and might want to climb a bit more. Or you’ll decide that you quite like the place you’re at, and this is as good a final destination as there can be, you’ll choose to enjoy the view from where you are and perhaps help those who haven’t been able to climb as much as you have, or those who want to climb higher than you have. Maybe you would decide to climb a bit more and then decide.

    The choice would be yours. After all, its your ladder, and your climb, and the top rung is where you decide it will be. The only thing you really don’t know is the journey time.

    until next time, an alarm rung….

  • Crossroads

    I guess there’s a connection between the post titled “Conformity” and this one… more or less ends at the samepoint…
    at many points in life, in fact at most, if not all points, there are crossroads, and we choose one path based on what we are and what we want to be, at that point of time.. a sort of constant game theory, if you will..the paths might turn out to be good or bad, and some paths also offer a correction mechanism, while some dont…we judge the outcome of the paths based on our sensibilities, and are also affected by the judgements of others.. some among us learn to discard the latter, whether this is an advancement, a sign of maturity is of course arguable.. assuming it is, this would be one level..
    while that goes on, theres another level being played, the venue being our minds… for we are after all humans, and with our objective tendencies, try to judge ourselves in comparison to others..
    i am wondering which of these levels is tougher to handle… and whether it is posible to build a coccoon which prevents any sort of comaprisons.. or is it forever going to be a battle of finding a balance between the greenery of the grass on the other side and the extent of greenery we allow it to bring on to our faces..
    until next time, some grass does make you high…

  • And who’ll be the judge of that??

    ‘Oh, thats not bad for his experience and ability’ immediately took me to SwB’s post sometime back on how we judge each other based on what we do, and where we have reached in our career.. its a regular occurence in many discussions – the interest and attention generated is very much in proportion to one’s designation, place of work, salary, job profile et al…but whats also regular is that we are judgemental, period..
    where i come from, families also get judged by the jewellery the woman of the house wears for functions.. at other times, they get judged by the talents of the kids they produce, ridiculous as it may sound… in other places,the wedding functions thrown are indicators of the family’s stature and financial position..
    And its just not reality alone, on the virtual paths we travel, there are those of us who judge blogs on the comments generated, and those of us who like to think that we are above such trivial things, and judge based on the quality of the post, or who all link to the blog…
    perhaps its because we are so used to finding happiness outside ourselves, that we are forever searching for others to compare with, and get the satisfaction that ‘ i am better than him/her’..its funny because even when i write this, i have to force myself to be non judgemental…and its also funny, we forget about the judgements when we compare favourably, and think about it only when we dont match up.. a defense mechanism automatically pops up, and we argue on why it isnt exactly as rosy as it looks… and so it shouldnt surprise anyone that the conversation ends with ‘but i bet he slogs till midnight…

    until next time, and they say judgement day is coming…

  • Benchmarks

    I used to hate them… they were different at different stages in life, but they were always there.. at every stage – to mock, to ridicule.. to dare, to challenge, to provoke..
    and they were never the same person… from the kid who got better marks than me in class 1 to the one who got the first prize in music/ quiz/ debate… to the cousin who managed to get an engineering/medicine admission to some slightly older distant relative who managed to go to the US… to the peer who got into IIT to the ones who earn more than me now… the challenges were good in the beginning, and with luck playing a major part, the ego used to have many days to gloat.. until one day, it finally dawned on me that if it continued in the same fashion, the battles would never end, there would always be a new ‘benchmark person’ around the corner… and also, that while i was chasing ‘targets’, i was automatically becoming a target myself… i was also gradually becoming the ‘benchmark persons’ i hated…..
    i stopped active participation..and followed the floyd mantra as in ‘the fletcher home memorial’
    “take your overgrown infants ,
    and build them a home,
    a place of their own’…….”
    “..did they expect us to treat them with any respect,
    they can polish their medals and sharpen their smiles,
    and abuse themselves playing games for a while,
    boom boom bang bang lie down you’re dead……..”

    but sometimes i wonder if i have actually got rid of them … because even now, when i am seemingly ‘in control’ of my life, and forced justifications arent necessary.. i guess they still exist in my mind..but times are different, i dont acknowledge battles now, i sneak up, in my own time, and move on…hehe…not a nice habit, i know…. old habits die hard…. but die they will…..
    until next time, be game….

    P.S : message for ash : cant comment on your site. they accuse my IP of spamming .. 🙁