Raise Bar For Yourselves Rather Than Comparing With Others !
Think about those people who lived in small kasbah or a village. It was easier to be good at something. Someone could be homecoming queen. Someone else could be math whiz, football star or a popular poet in the small community. There were only one or two mechanics and couple of teachers. In each of their domains, these local heroes had opportunity to enjoy the serotonin-fueled confidence of the victor. It may be for that reason that the people who were born in the small kasbahs are statistically over-represented among the eminent.
If you are one in the million now, but originated in modern Mumbai, there is twenty of you-and most of us now live in cities. What is more, we have become digitally connected to the entire 125 Crore. Our hierarchies of accomplishment are now dizzyingly vertical.
No matter how good you are at something, or how you rank your accomplishments, there is some one out there who makes you look incompetent. You are decent sitar player, but you are not Pt Ravi shankar or Nikhil Banerji. You are almost certainly not even going to win heart of small gathering at Ravindra natya Mandir. You are a good cook, but there are many great chefs in your own Goregaon suburb. Your mother's recieve of kadi chawal, no matter how celebrated in her village of origin, does not cut in these days of grapefruit foam and pan-gulkand icecream. Some mafia don or businessman has a tackier yacht. Some obessive CEO has more complicated self-winding watch, kept in his more valuable mechanical hardwood-and steel automatic self winding watch case. Even the most stunning Bollywood actress eventually transforms into the Evil Queen, or eternal, paranoid watch for new Snow White. And you ? Your career is boring and pointless, your housekeeping skills are second rate, your taste is appalling, you are fatter than your friends, and everyone dreads your parties. Who cares if you are prime minister of Bhutan if someone else is the prime minister of India ?
Inside us dwells a critical internal voice and spirit that knows all this. It is predisposed to make a noisy case. It condems our mediocre efforts. It can be very difficult to quell. Worse, critics of its sort are necessary. There is no shortagge of tasteless artists, tuneless musicians, substandard cooks, bureaucratically-personality-disordered middle managers, hack novelists and tedious, ideology-ridden professors.
Remember, things as well as people differ importantly in their qualities. Awful music torments listeners everywhere. Poorly designed buildings crumble in earthquakes. Substandard automobiles kills their drivers when they crash. failure is the price we pay for standards and , because mediocrity has consequences both real and harsh, standards are necessary.
We are not equal in ability or outcome, and never will be. A very small number of people produce very much of everything.
So the point is, what we should do ? Should we feel dejected seeing that people are more versatile, competent, talented or successful than us ?
It is better if we compare our today's skills, competence level with that of our previous years, if we perform better now than there is a reason to feel cheerful. In case we have not improved on these parameters, we have reason to work hard, to upgrade our skills. If this is our attitude we feel not feel failed, dejected or unhappy.
So Raise Your Own Bar.
If you are one in the million now, but originated in modern Mumbai, there is twenty of you-and most of us now live in cities. What is more, we have become digitally connected to the entire 125 Crore. Our hierarchies of accomplishment are now dizzyingly vertical.
No matter how good you are at something, or how you rank your accomplishments, there is some one out there who makes you look incompetent. You are decent sitar player, but you are not Pt Ravi shankar or Nikhil Banerji. You are almost certainly not even going to win heart of small gathering at Ravindra natya Mandir. You are a good cook, but there are many great chefs in your own Goregaon suburb. Your mother's recieve of kadi chawal, no matter how celebrated in her village of origin, does not cut in these days of grapefruit foam and pan-gulkand icecream. Some mafia don or businessman has a tackier yacht. Some obessive CEO has more complicated self-winding watch, kept in his more valuable mechanical hardwood-and steel automatic self winding watch case. Even the most stunning Bollywood actress eventually transforms into the Evil Queen, or eternal, paranoid watch for new Snow White. And you ? Your career is boring and pointless, your housekeeping skills are second rate, your taste is appalling, you are fatter than your friends, and everyone dreads your parties. Who cares if you are prime minister of Bhutan if someone else is the prime minister of India ?
Inside us dwells a critical internal voice and spirit that knows all this. It is predisposed to make a noisy case. It condems our mediocre efforts. It can be very difficult to quell. Worse, critics of its sort are necessary. There is no shortagge of tasteless artists, tuneless musicians, substandard cooks, bureaucratically-personality-disordered middle managers, hack novelists and tedious, ideology-ridden professors.
Remember, things as well as people differ importantly in their qualities. Awful music torments listeners everywhere. Poorly designed buildings crumble in earthquakes. Substandard automobiles kills their drivers when they crash. failure is the price we pay for standards and , because mediocrity has consequences both real and harsh, standards are necessary.
We are not equal in ability or outcome, and never will be. A very small number of people produce very much of everything.
So the point is, what we should do ? Should we feel dejected seeing that people are more versatile, competent, talented or successful than us ?
It is better if we compare our today's skills, competence level with that of our previous years, if we perform better now than there is a reason to feel cheerful. In case we have not improved on these parameters, we have reason to work hard, to upgrade our skills. If this is our attitude we feel not feel failed, dejected or unhappy.
So Raise Your Own Bar.
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