Saturday, 27 March 2021, Bhatye

If you live in a world which is constantly changing, volatile, chaotic (which is definitely the world we all live in), then not having a standard measuring stick for comparing your actions and yourself to is like a boon (sadly, one which is less acknowledged).

Let me elaborate my stance..

Everyone says (especially teachers and parents) that to become successful in your life, you have to be competitive. And when one speaks of competition, the act of comparison is implicit and the yard-stick of success make its first appearance.

Most of us, for most of the time are engaged in the act of comparing ourselves with someone or something. It is so much part of subconscious that we rarely take notice of these thoughts. But these comparisons impact our decisions, actions and sometimes can cause lots of depression. Don’t you Agree? Lets recall your thoughts when your friend got the job or didn’t or your neighbor bought new car or your friend got married or he/she bought new house etc etc. What comes to your mind at such instances & what you refrain from terming as jealousy is the act of comparison. Sometimes this comparison drives us and sometimes it makes us stop.

In addition to this subconscious comparison, there is another yard-stick of comparison that you will face. It is the evaluative comparison by Society. The society tend to use their own yard-stick to measure your level of success and making an opinion about it which is almost always unwarranted.

Society is like Mr. Market who is constantly telling you about your level of success. Because of these constant evaluative remarks, we start making changes to our life according to societal norms. The affected areas of life are diverse and includes your choice education, career, your salary (& whether it is enough to be termed as success) to most personal decisions like you marriage and beyond. At each step of decision making, we simulate how society will take it and go forward. Hence society acts like an invisible big-brother looking over your shoulder & assessing your each decision. Some people term this as Peer Pressure or Social Control.

So much about this invisible censor, lets consider what our life would be if there is no index to compare our life with. Would our life becomes better then? Consider this para from book The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham which explains mere thoughts of eventual loss or fear of becoming poor actually causes selling of securities & hence realizing the loss.

Incidentally, a widespread situation of this kind actually existed during the dark depression days of 1931–1933. There was then a psychological advantage in owning business interests that had no quoted market. For example, people who owned first mortgages on real estate that continued to pay interest were able to tell themselves that their investments had kept their full value, there being no market quotations to indicate otherwise. On the other hand, many listed corporation bonds of even better quality and greater underlying strength suffered severe shrinkage in their market quotations, thus making their owners believe they were growing distinctly poorer. In reality the owners were better off with the listed securities, despite the low prices of these. For if they had wanted to, or were compelled to, they could at least have sold the issues—possibly to exchange them for even better bargains. Or they could just as logically have ignored the market’s action as temporary and basically meaningless. But it is self-deception to tell yourself that you have suffered no shrinkage in value merely because your securities have no quoted market at all.

– The Intelligent Investor, Benjamin Graham (Page 203)

But this self-deception can hold-off the investor from jumping the gun and avoid the loss. On the similar lines, I would argue that if you can become selectively deaf towards these societal yard-stick of success, you can enjoy the peace of mind which is missing from our daily live lately. I would end with following quote..

The happiness of those who want to be popular depends on others; the happiness of those who seek pleasure fluctuates with moods outside their control; but the happiness of the wise grows out of their own free acts.

—Marcus Aurelius

I would love to hear your views on this topic.