Unfortunately, we live in the age of comparison and perhaps as human beings, we’ve always been, of course, comparing one another. You’re better looking than I am, you’re smarter than I am, but I’m smarter than other people, I’m better looking than other people, I’m richer than some, poor than others, and it goes on, doesn’t it really? But now due to the advent probably of the Internet, we are truly bombarded with images on an ongoing basis and the mind is going somewhat berserk, isn’t it? Because at an instance notice, we can evaluate the other 8,000,000,000 people on the planet virtually. And many times we find ourselves of course wanting because most assuredly, it’s the old story, isn’t it?
There is always someone better looking than me and there’s always always someone more intelligent than me. But of course, once again, there is no one like me, but we tend to forget that, don’t we? We forget how special we are, how unique we are because of the ongoing comparison. A young friend of mine was telling me the other day that her son, a good looking young man with a good career, felt that he wasn’t getting the dates that he wanted because he wasn’t quite six foot two blonde and good looking like perhaps my brothers are, not me of course. I was the kind of runt of the litter as they say in English.
You know, I was smaller with dark hair and dark eyes, but my brothers, virtually to a man, were all tall and blonde, so they fit the stereotype. So what is one to do? Well, I think I had a bit of a lesson that I learned when I was 16 years old because of this comparison image. And, of course, we were devoid of the Internet, so we only had our classmates to compare to. And I went to a very very small school, but still, I felt very terrible.
But then you could escape if you were able to buy a car. And everyone, now this is some fifty years ago, everyone had a part time job. And if you didn’t have a part time job, you literally were lazy and you didn’t want to work because it was so much work. So I had this part time job pumping gas three days a week, and I had quite a bit of money. So turned 16, finally got my license.
That was a bit of a struggle with my father instructing, as you can imagine, but I got the license. And now I’m going to buy a car. And my father said, Leon, you’re not buying a car. I said, oh, come on dad, everyone buys a car, not you. Young men don’t own cars under the age of 21.
So here I was, no car, and, of course, then no girlfriend. And in my age of comparison, I’m slipping away to virtually nothing. I’m now the ugliest boy in my school. And then in the next town, the town of Port Alberni, at the time, there were around 30,000 people living there, and there was a very large school of 2,500 to 3,000 students. I mean, more than the size of my whole town.
So we got on the bus, and we went to this conference in this high school. And I always remember that the auditorium had a wooden floor. It’s quite spectacular. We had really moved. We were uptown.
I felt like I was in Paris, If you can imagine such a thing, I was really sophisticated. Wow. I couldn’t believe it. But I’m feeling bad because I am the ugliest boy in my school. So I’m kind of keeping to myself, and then I see this really good looking girl catch my eye.
And she begins to walk towards me, and I realized, oh my gosh. She’s coming closer. So I’m trying to fade into the wall. And finally, she stood in front of me, and she said, may I stare? Now this was the mid seventies and young women were getting liberated in The United States.
So this was not an untoward question, but I, of course, took it as a total pejorative question. I got quite angry. What are you staring at? And she said, I’m staring at you. Now why are you staring at me?
And she said, because I think you’re so good looking. I know. I went, what? Yes. I think you’re so good looking, and I’m not good looking at all.
But I realized a light went on, and I realized that if I could fool one girl, I, of course, could fool two girls. I could fool all the girls because who was making me ugly? Me. I was making myself ugly. And there we are.
It cured me from the age of comparison. I realized from then on, it was up to me. But, of course, just because we decide that we understand the world, it means very little if we don’t get to work on the self. Right? I mean, this is extremely important.
So this is a mindset, of course, in the modern age that’s fueled by social media. We are status orientated people even though we don’t want to. So we have status anxiety and we have this deep desire to measure ourselves as kids against one another. It’s only later that we lose it. So what do we do?
Let’s be honest. We need some grounding. Right? And how do we do this? Well, every day when we wake up, we should say, thank God I’m me.
My bed is clean. My house is fine. So we have to practice gratitude. And then we really need to build some type of thoughtful, some contemplative idea, however we do this. Right?
The other day, I went for a very long walk in nature, maybe about 20 kilometers. It was quiet. The dogs didn’t even seem to bark. And all you heard was the twittering of the frogs, the croaking of the frogs, and the bamboo. You heard it cracking against in the forest, and that was about it.
It was really a peaceful, lovely time. Right? And just a note, I didn’t turn my phone on. So I was totally silent for almost five hours. Wonderful.
Right? And if you’re going to begin to compare yourself, you realize that you should celebrate the world. The world is a diverse and wonderful place. Right? So why not celebrate other beings, but do not compare yourself.
And then I think, ultimately, when all is said and done, we have memento mori. I am going to leave here one day. One day, I’m not gonna be here. So I think I should remember that this is true for all of us. So I should cherish all the time that I’m here.
I listened in the morning to, series of affirmations, and one of them goes on to say, remember that you deserve to be you and you are complete. You are enough. But then once again, get to work on your story. Make it the story that you want. Right?
Absolutely for sure. And stop comparing yourself to others. It is absolutely pointless. And ultimately, another reason I think just in closing here is the reason you shouldn’t compare yourself to others because you cannot change you. If you look at your body, that’s pretty much it.
Now we live in an age, of course, that people are trying to say change their sex, and there is a lot of plastic surgery that’s ongoing. But in reality, you can’t change the body. You can adapt certain things. You can alter certain things. You can even change your sex.
But ultimately, you can’t really change you. You’re gonna still end up with you. So you better learn to like you. Right? And you know the concept of the given.
I am a man. I am almost 70 years old. I do have two children. I’m sort of white. I have a Canadian passport, and I have a certain amount of money, certain amount of intelligence, and the rest is up to me.
So to compare myself to others is really pointless. It’s foolish. If anything, I should look for a mentor, look for a guide that can help me grow. And fortunately, I teach hundreds of young people, and I learn far more from the people I teach than I can ever give them back, and that’s the truth. And I think anyone who’s ever been involved with teaching people would say the same thing, I’m sure.
The experience has made you a far, far better person. You then you can ask, would Aristotle be Aristotle without teaching Alexander the Great? Well, that’s a question for us to ponder. And you know what they say. You know what they say.
Critical thinking is excellent, especially when you rationally sort of analyze that I don’t want to be a part of the age of comparison. I want to defeat it. And critical thinking, of course, is great, truly great. You take care. God bless. Bye bye.