When you hear the word special, certain emotions are triggered isn't it? The feelings when you hear special are very special. It is exclusive. But what the hell is this speciality all about?
When you are deeply in love with that person or when you care about that person or when you can't stop thinking about that person, we bucket them as special ones. You feel that there is no other person like that special one and hence you feel what you feel. If that is the case then what should we call ourselves?
The chances of you being born as you is 1:400 trillion. Which means there is no other you in this entire universe. If that is the case, then how special are you?
This statistic fascinates me with a bunch of questions. If we are so special then how come all human beings are identifiable despite differences in gender, skin color, hair color, height, weight etc. From a similarity perspective, they all have two legs, two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth, five litres of blood flows in their body (not more, not less), 11 systems, 320 muscle groups, 207 or 208 bones depending upon gender and yet every DNA is unique. How is this even possible? Fascinating isn't it?
I turned to evolutionary biology to get some answers to my never ending questions. May be you will not be interested in the biological facts of how things evolved but you will surely be interested in personal growth. (If i didn't get your brows up and a little lean forward with all the attention, then my understanding of human nature is questionable.) Now that we have your attention, let us see what makes you super special.
While your DNA makes you unique, the impressions life has given you makes you super special. The environment you grew up in, the education you received, the life experiences you had, the parents you were born to, the parents they were born to, your friends, your teachers, your enemies and everything around you made you as YOU. There is literally no one like you and yet why do we want to be like someone else? why do we compare with someone else? Why do we gauge ourselves on that comparison scale? We not only judge ourselves but we also judge the other person on that scale? Have you ever wondered why we do that?
It is human nature to compare ourselves with fellow human beings around. That is the only way we understand and apprehend our world. For survival reasons, we constantly analyse our environment to keep finding if we are weak or strong. This is possible only when there is a standard. Everything will be pinned on that standard. Comparing ourselves is about positioning things and it enables us to structure our thinking. Fighting it would therefore almost be like trying to stop thinking. It is impossible for you to not have those survival instincts of comparison. So how can we use this impulse in a useful manner.
Here are some tips for you:
You are super special. There is no one like you. It is futile to compare yourself with yet another human being. But the survival impulse strikes. When it strike just watch what is happening inside you. This awareness will enhance your perception about how you see yourself. When you see you as a third person, you will be able to observe things about you which you might not have known before. Now you can pick some aspects in you that you want to improve and work on it for betterment. This is a fabulous opportunity.
Typically comparison happens on a trigger. Find out what is that trigger. Typically triggers come from some negative instances or pain. It is human to remember more negative than positive as our negativity bias is 1:9. We remember negative things more for survival so we don't do that mistake again. When you see the triggers in you with this understanding, you will start having some empathy and compassion towards yourself. By looking at how devastating you feel, you may even be able to change for good. For example, it could be a trigger from childhood about your sibling. Now that you have grown up, you can smile at the trigger, get better and move on.
You are 100% different from the other person given your 1:400 trillion ratio. If there is something you envy about the other person, this data point will help you to make some improvements in yourself. For example, you felt so good running in the morning, till another person jolted faster than you. The only data point here is, you could run fast and with that you will go ahead and find out how to increase endurance, speed and stamina and not stop running because you are a little slower than some human being who ran past you.
The differences are inevitable. By knowing where you stand in the gold standard test of your environment, you can give yourself a percentile and keep moving on. The differences could encourage you to think different and ideate better.
Envy, jealous, demotivated are some of the feelings you could get when you compare yourself with someone stronger and the opposite when you compare yourself with someone weaker than you. Use this opportunity to audit the goodness and brainstorm with yourself about how you could improve yourself. Ask that person whom you admire to give some advice. You will be surprised how priceless that encounter will turn out to be.
When you are true to yourself, you clearly know where you stand. This awareness propels you in the right action. It all goes south when you start telling lies to yourself and have an imaginary image of yourself. Get real. The comparison really helps in that direction.
Auditing is a great skill. On total audit, you will know the gaps, opportunities, strengths and weakness. Comparison is the best auditing technique. Now go and strategise how to be better. Turn your strategies into action and see how you progress.
Your happiness is absolute. It depends upon how you progress, how you feel, how blessed you are etc. Our negativity bias does not give us an innate capability to do this and hence we have to deliberately write a gratitude journal to count our blessings. On the other hand comparison and dejection comes easy and unsolicited.
Here is my humble opinion. Enlightenment is hard for mere mortals because you need to go past your human impulses and nature and seek the truth. This is why many of us will not be realised. We will not be able to do it so easily. Once you understand what is happening inside you, you will have the necessary awakening. The first step to enlightenment is to understand human nature fully. Cognitive Psychology too is a path for realisation. It surely is a different path but going towards the same destination. This is my POV. The aim of this blog is to bring that perspective in to everyone who is human and can read this.
You want to know how special I am. Here is a quick one.
There is no way you will find another one like this!
How is yours looking like?
