In my last post on Compare people – Why?, I discussed the beneficial aspects of comparing people. Readers gave some interesting insights as well in the comments, one of which I quote during the post. In this post I try to discuss the flip side of comparison among people.

Comparison has always been a debated subject. Right from the times of the Mahabharata, comparison and the resulting jealousy has been the bane of human history. The seeds of the war at Kurukshetra during Mahabharata were sown during the childhood days of Kauravas and Pandavas in the minds of Duryodhana. (For more, read here) A number of times, the fruits of our action are relative, example, by achieving my revenue targets, I shall get a bigger raise than the rest of my colleagues. Perhaps the greatest verse ever told to mankind, asks one to not let the fruits of your actions be the motive behind the same.

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते संगोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥

Translation: To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction.

Next issue here is the objects of comparison. Comparing Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal perhaps is justified, but imagine comparing an upcoming young tennis player, say Prakash Amritraj, with Roger Federer. Not only would the comparison be unjust and unfair, it would put an unbelievable amount of pressure on Prakash. Sadly, in real life, you see exactly this happening a lot of times. Inter-sibling comparison, inter-family comparison, comparison between friends, comparison among people you know, all this has become too common. While comparing, the focus is extremely unilateral – just one aspect of personalities is compared. That one brother is a good-for-nothing chap is decided solely on the basis that the other brother got through an Ivy league college in USA and the other couldn’t. Now, is that fair? Not only will this lead to a tremendous loss of confidence for the child at that age, it would lead to a huge inner urge to get back at his family for making him the constant subject of humiliation.

To quote an earlier comment made by Somyvan on the verse quoted by me in this post:

Comparison is a question of determining the magnitude of variance and its direction. We feel a certain direction is more desirable. That leads to the action of striving in that direction.If people break down because this one-up-man-ship is not achieved, it is sad.

Its not only sad, but also a huge loss of resource. Possibly these people who break down might have become champions at something else, if their aptitudes were tapped in the right manner. However, in India and perhaps all over the world as well, there is a huge crowd mentality. Just because one trader became a millionaire, millions of people put all their life savings into the stock market and lose it all. The dark side of comparison is that it has and it will continue to destroy millions of homes. It will take away the peace of mind from someone wishing to do anything constructive. While some people may take comparison as a motivating factor, for most, tackling it may become too overwhelming.

Next, comparison is a major source of unethical behaviour. Cycling as a competitive sport is on the verge of collapse today and the major reason is comparison.  The list of doping incidents in Cycling is long and this article on wikipedia is evidence of the same. Floyd Landis – the declared winner at 2006 Tour De France -was disqualified after a drug control test. Why cycling, look at perhaps the greatest sport in human history – Running. Marion Jones, an athlete who supposedly took women’s track and field to another level at the Sydney Olympics, was jailed in 2008 for 6 months and was stripped of all her Golds since she took performance enhancing drugs. Why do such great athletes who take up cycling surrender to the lure of doping? Its perhaps due to this fear of failure and need to succeed at any cost.Some great mind has heroically given us a motivational quote ‘You never win the silver, you lose the Gold’ . However, the consequences of such an attitude are disastrous. It pushes even the brightest of the bright over the limit in terms of ethics. While the proverb is great for motivation, if not accompanied with examples of ethical behavior, it can ruin the life of an upcoming player.

Finally, what is really achieved out of this constant and never-ending comparison? Perhaps we establish the greatness of someone – ‘XYZ is the best because he beat all his peers for a certain number of times at something’. But does that mean that those peers who lost then were any lesser than the victors? To give an example of this in the modern context – we have 4000 out of 300,000 students entering IITs every year. These are supposed to be the best in the country, as they beat lakhs of their contemporaries at an exam. But does that mean that all of the peers who they beat were inferior? Certainly not! Failure to enter IITs has a psychological effect on many bright ones. Who knows how many great scientists India has lost and will lose in future because these students couldn’t enter the IITs since their families couldn’t afford sending these kids to famous (and expensive) IIT professors!

So, how can one beat this deadly comparison game? I believe the only way to beat this comparison is look for self betterment. What should be done is one should look at self betterment as a source of motivation for oneself. One has to consider his past performance and strive for improvement – constant and multifaceted as the only parameter for success. Apart from this, we should inculcate a positive attitude in life – the occasional setback may come. There will be days when the unthinkable will happen . One has to learn to take these things in their stride and move on, perhaps even try harder. To conclude, its about setting the bar higher for yourself and then, overcoming it ethically. In the words of Albert Einstein -

You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.

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1. Compare people – Why?
2. The need for more IITs and IIMs
3. A Holistic Approach towards Educational Reforms
4. Why CAT should always be offline
5. Why Indians, but not India lead in Research?