Ways to distinguish yourself – #62 Stop comparing to the ideal scenario

By Rajesh Setty on Wed 16 Nov 2005, 10:09 PM – Leave Comment

If you want to be happier than where you are just try this – stop

comparing any scenario to ideal scenario. It will make a huge

difference and you will instantly become special in some way. Most

people have trouble with their jobs or relationships or colleagues or

– this is the best – with themselves because they start comparing one

or more of these things to an ideal condition.

An example – When someone says they have problem with their boss, I

always ask “Is there any one thing that your boss does right?” and the

answer, of course, is “Yes.” When I probe further, they say that there

are a lot of things that the boss does right but this one thing that he

does wrong is the troublesome one. So I ask “Why are you not happy

about all the other things that your boss does right?” and there is a

long silence on the other end. On a lighter note one of them said

“Well, if I focus on all the right things, what will I complain about?”

We can almost say that ideal scenarios exist only in our imagination.

In the above example, you really have to “manufacture” a boss that will

be doing “everything” right. If you change your job or the boss

changes, the situation might improve but only until you discover that

the new boss also has issues (may be not the same ones) when you

compare him to the “ideal” one.

It is good to compare to an ideal scenario when the objective is to

improve and perform better. However, most of us carry out this

comparison to complain or to feel miserable.

Good luck!

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