Comparison

“Nothing is good or bad but by comparison.”
Thomas Fuller

We are always comparing, even if we don’t realize that we are doing it. Sometimes we compare what we have with what our neighbor has. Sometimes we compare what we have with what we used to have. Sometimes we compare what we have with what we have seen in a store or book or an advertisement. Sometimes we compare what we have with something we have created in our imagination. But we are always comparing what we have right now with something else. And most of the time, what we have right now seems less desirable than the other thing that we are comparing it with.

Our egos are always dissatisfied with what we have. We always feel incomplete, as though there were something lacking in our lives. And we are continually searching for it. But whatever we find is soon inadequate again, because the truth is that there is no thing outside ourselves that will make us complete. We are already complete. We don’t need anything else. All we really need to be happy and satisfied and peaceful is to be able to appreciate and enjoy the things that we have in our life right now, without any comparison and negative judgement.

When was the last time you were perfectly content with the things you have right now? Probably never. Imagine how much happier you would be if you were. Wouldn’t it be wonderful not to be always pressured to get something better, to need something you don’t have? Wouldn’t it be wonderful never to have to worry about whether you deserved whatever it is that you don’t have right now, or whether you have the ability and resources to get it? If you stopped judging whatever you have right now as being inferior to something else, then you could finally relax and enjoy the things you have. You could finally find true happiness.