Doesn’t it come so naturally, to compare yourself with your colleagues or friends in things that you share in common with them?

I grew up in an environment of constant comparison… be it comparison with my siblings or be it comparison with my friends or others in the same age group as me. The comparison could be aimed at you as a means for you to look up to and do better in life. Like for example, and this could very well be the most common one, being compared to someone at school who happens to score better grades than you. Alternatively, the comparison could even be aimed in a totally opposite direction, restricting you from proceeding to do something. Like for example, “No one in our family has ever done that before. Why on earth would you want to do that?”. Whether the comparison is aimed at helping you perform better or whether it is aimed at restricting you, the key think to note here is that you are being compared.

Many of us, right from childhood, are used to the comparative way of living – the relative way of living. We grow up learning to compare ourselves with others, many a times just to feel inferior at the end of it. What very few learn is the way of living an absolute life.

Being absolute is to know what you want to do, be, and have, without it being relative to someone or something else. Like for example, “I want to have more money than XYZ”, is relative. “I want to have multi-million dollar lifestyle” or, “I want to have an annual income of five hundred thousand dollars” is absolute.

Are you getting a hang of it already? Try it on one of the main comparative thing that beings grievance into your life. Take off the relativity from the situation and make it absolute. You would be surprised at how effective this technique could be in resolving such problems.

Let’s consider an example: You are feeling bad about a colleague of yours doing better at work and your boss liking him more than you. You are being comparative or relative. You feel emotionally drained every time you think about work. You used to love your work earlier, but now it seems like a burden. What went wrong? You moved from being absolute to being comparative, and that’s the root cause of the problem. Think back on the reason why you took up the job. You wanted to learn a particular skill, you wanted to gain knowledge about a particular industry or field, or some other similar reason. But you would have most certainly not joined work to be better than your colleague. In fact you would have probably not even known that person before you joined the company. Switching to being comparative (which happens to come naturally, because that’s the way we have been trained since childhood) is the root cause of the problem. And when you realize this and change your mindset to be absolute again, you will find true happiness. Take a hard look at your job again. You still have the job you took up, and you most probably are getting better at the skill you wanted to pick up, and you are being more knowledgeable in the field than you belong. If you maintain focus on what you are gaining, and take steps in the absolute direction, like for example, to train in a sub-skill that you have not yet had the opportunity to work on, you would be well on your way to success. Someone else being liked more by the boss then wouldn’t matter anymore, and guess what, before you even know, while you are focused on being your absolute self, one fine day you might just find that you are suddenly everyone’s hot favorite at work.

Once you get it to work for you, try practicing it in everything you do in your daily life. Rephrase every situation, and every goal and every wish, to make it absolute. If it cannot be put in absolute terms, it is probably not worth being sought after. Make yourself more and more absolute with each passing day. The aim is to try and be as absolute as you can, while at the same time not losing the overall picture of life. And as you get more and more absolute, there’s no telling how much good is going to come your way in terms of self satisfaction and happiness in life.

Start right now with something that came to your mind as you read through this article. Write it down in its relative form, then rephrase it and make it absolute, and then go our on your normal routine acting it out the absolute way. And when you see the difference for yourself, I’m sure there would be no turning back.