One topic that’s been covered many timesin the whole self-improvement genre is how toxic it can be to compare ourselves withothers and how we should stop this pattern.
And I’m not here to just regurgitate thesame information.
No.
In this video, I’m gonna be sharing somethingvery different.
It’s the way that I look at and make senseof all of our differences.
And if you give my approach a try, I’m sureyou’ll be able to be less critical towards yourself and others as well.
Hi! My name is Daniel and I love talking aboutself-improvement and mental health.
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Ok, so the way that I look at and makes senseof all of our differences pretty much falls under two mindset reframes.
And the first one I actually mentioned inone of my past videos about how to build up your self-esteem.
In that video, I created this whole analogyaround slips of paper and one hundred dollar bills to illustrate the idea of intrinsicworth.
I want you to imagine that, in front of you, you've got a spread of thin slips of paper.
Some of the slips of paper are a little crumpled, some are a little dirty, and some are perfectly crisp and clean.
Now, if you believe that these slips of paperdon’t have value on their own, you're more likely to overvalue their visible differences.
You might think that the dirty slips of paperhave less value than the clean ones.
But, what if I told you that they're not justany slips of paper? What if I told you that they're all one hundreddollar bills? Does a hundred dollar bill that's a littledirty or crumpled have less value than a perfect one? No it doesn’t.
The value is still there.
And because we’re sure of that, most peopledon’t waste their time obsessing over trying to keep all of their money clean and perfect, right? In the same way, I changed how I looked atour worth and value as people.
By looking at all people, including myself, as having incredible intrinsic worth, I’m able to see that the differences among usare really insignificant… so insignificant that it makes no sense for me to beat myselfup or anybody else over them.
Ok, moving onto my second mindset reframe.
Let’s begin by recreating the world we alllive in.
You’re right there, right in the centerof your world.
Now let’s populate your world with otherpeople.
Then, as a lot of people do, let’s lineup all these people along a scale based on your idea of what makes an accomplished humanbeing… less accomplished to your left, more accomplished to your right.
To your immediate left and right, you’vegot people who appear to be measuring up closer to you.
So, these are the guys you’re probably comparingyourself to more regularly.
Then to your far left and right, you’vegot people in a completely different league, those you wouldn’t even compare yourselfto.
So, the person to your far right might bethis world-famous philanthropic tycoon who’s made a dent in the universe.
And the person to your far left might be thisevil warlord who’s killed millions of innocent people.
Now, if this is your whole world, if, in yourmind, this is all that exists, you’ll place more meaning to WHERE everyone is situatedon your scale.
And you’ll be more likely to feel superiorto those on your left and inferior to those on your right.
To address this problem, the biggest voicesin self-improvement most commonly advise two things.
One: drop all attempts at assessing othersbecause humans are just too complex to be compared.
And, two: hyperfocus on YOURSELF in such away that you’re just too busy to mind what others are doing.
But, you know what? Your mind will still find a way to compare.
So this is what I do instead.
I zoom out of that world to see the Earthso much bigger than the people.
I then zoom out further to see our sun somuch bigger than Earth.
I then zoom out even further to see the largestknown star so much bigger than our sun.
I then finally zoom out as far as my mindcan to reveal an entity that I believe to be bigger than all of existence, an entitythat I believe to be the ultimate actualization of perfection.
Looking at the world through this very zoomedout lens, it’s almost like i’m looking at us humans in the same way that I look atants.
I see how small we are, how insignificantour differences are.
I see how tiny the difference is between aphilanthropic tycoon and an evil warlord.
I’m able to see that all of us fall astronomicallyshort of the glory of God.
As such imperfect, comparatively insignificantbeings, who are we to feel like we’re better than others? Who are we to beat one another up? So I don’t agree with mob justice.
I don’t waste my time and energy puttingothers down, not in my day-to-day life, not over YouTube.
In fact, I’ve spent more of my time andenergy on YouTube trying to bring understanding and compassion to some of the most hated people.
As YouTubers who put our lives out into theworld, we get our own fair share of haters as well.
But when others spend their time and energyputting us down, even going as far as making YouTube videos to criticize us, we don’twaste our time and energy to defend ourselves, to convince other ants that we as ants runat 6 body lengths a second instead of 5.
And through this lens, we don’t perceive, as much as others do, a dividing gap between those with and those without conditions thataffect cognitive and physical growth.
So we do find it quite tragic that our medicalsystem offers to terminate pregnancies when these conditions are discovered.
These are just some of the many ways thatthese two mindset reframes have shaped how we look at ourselves and others.
If you know anyone who could benefit fromthis video, make sure to share it.
And if you found this video helpful, don’tforget to give it a thumbs up as well.
Thanks for watching and I’ll see you nexttime.
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