When you are content to be simply yourself philosophy

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everyone will respect you”- Lao Tzu

This isn’t just any other quote. This is actually true. We’re all in a world of competition- whether in our personal lives or in our professional lives. In our personal lives, we compete with our friends, our family, our children’s friend’s parents, sometimes even our lovers. In our professional lives, oh yeah! We compete with every possible person and push ourselves to strive and do better than the others- why? Because, we’re human and our wants and desires never end. We want to be paid a higher salary, we want to be promoted, we want to be the perfect husband/wife/parent/friend etc. In effect, we seem to go to great lengths to achieve things in our personal and professional lives to be validated, to be praised, to make ourselves feel better. And the cost/ price we pay for this, is losing our peace of mind, losing respect, losing ourselves most importantly, which eventually leads to losing others.

It is one thing to have a healthy competition and it is another thing for that competition to become our driving force/ factor. When it is the latter, we’re welcoming toxicity and going down that path leads to a disaster.

Not only do we compete, we even compare- that’s again, being human. I’ve observed a great deal of people who constantly compare their lives to that of the others and I’ve done it too, which I later realised was not the best thing to do. As children, we are compared with others in the way we are, the grades we get, the clothes we wear, the toys we have etc. Especially, if you’re an Indian- there is so much comparison from very early on that it becomes an inherent part of us.

For instance, I had a friend, a close one. She was someone I loved like a sister. And yes, between friends, you share your personal lives. So I went right in and shared some of the most beautiful moments I was experiencing. At the moment, my friend was going through a great deal of uncertainty in her personal life and I was just in the beginning of a budding relationship- those butterflies, that spark, those initial feelings of deep connection with my potential long-term partner. I hadn’t experienced such a deep connection before and I was overwhelmed by it. I shared these beautiful moments with my friend. Now, since her life was not going as planned, she needed something to do and she began meddling with this budding relationship of mine. Not only did she meddle with it, she started liking the attention she was getting from all of this. Meddling in someone else’s life kept her mind off the void and uncertainty she was feeling in her personal life. This, as you may have guessed, took a disastrous turn. What happened, is a topic for another day.

So why the meddling? She compared the butterflies and spark I had with the void and uncertainty she had at the moment. She felt that her relationship didn’t have the connection I had with my potential long-term partner (in my head, I was certain we were going to get married someday and hence the usage of potential long-term partner). So instead of dealing with her issues, she compared her life with that of mine and her comparison came in the way and sabotaged my relationship with my person. Not only did she compare, I, too, am guilty of comparing. I not only compared my situation with that of hers, I even compared myself to her and the result- I may have come in my own way and sabotaged my relationship. Thanks to my friend meddling, not only was there comparisons, there was also a competition.

I even tried to change the way I do things just to keep that relationship going because clearly, I was feeling like the ship was slowly sinking and wanted to do everything to keep it afloat. This went on for a while and all of this left me feeling drained out. I had to finally let both, my friend and my potential long-term partner go, because none of us were happy (this person meant the world to me).

When I got over the situation, I analysed what went wrong and I realised that my friend wasn’t happy with where her relationship stood and that led her to compare it with someone else’s. I, for one, wasn’t happy with where things were going and I compared myself to this friend and tried to change accordingly (and I was going away from myself). I realised that I was in some ‘competition’, which I never wanted to be part of. I only loved my person with all my heart and wanted to be a part of the wonderful journey I thought it could have been. But alas! With great difficulty, I decided it was best to let him go. Slowly, I started re-tracing my steps and went back to who I actually always was and how I had changed myself due to peer pressure. I slowly found myself- with the help and support of my wonderful family and with meditation. I started becoming comfortable with who I have always been and slowly stopped comparing and competing. I realised I tried to change because I wasn’t comfortable being me.

My journey is still on- it is never ending and I’m being mindful of who I am. I am comfortable in my own skin, I am myself and whether other people like me or not, I am who I am. I realise that it’s ok if people don’t like me, so long as I am respected for who I am, I’m good.

Take Away- Be yourself and be comfortable in who you are, don’t try to change for someone else by comparing yourselves or your lives with them or theirs. Don’t compete because you’re only going to lose something beautiful. When you are yourself, you will notice the difference- the way people view you and that will be with respect.