Lost... and found
Copied below is this comment made yesterday to a post from long ago. It is too insightful to be read by only two people (its author and me). I hope you reading it in turn inspires your comments or questions.
Sorry to have 'found' you, Michael, but I am glad I did. Please feel welcome to drop in at any time, and offer your comments or insights on any topic.
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Occasionally, I do a Google search on Innerworth to see what articles subscribers have decided to re-post. Some people write in to Innerworth.com asking me to reveal who writes most of the daily columns. I never reveal myself, but if someone finds this post, well fine. You've found my secret. So the column David posted is particularly meaningful to me. Sure, it's about trading on the surface, but it covers a deep philosophical issue I've been pondering: Each person has his or her own gifts, talents, and resources, and thus, only we can determine our own unique self-worth. Oftentimes, we spend our lives fruitlessly looking outward for worth and acceptance. Do I make enough money? Did I "make it" yet? Will I ever do better than my neighbor? But comparisons with others are ultimately useless. Sometimes we can feel a temporary sense of pride when we meet someone on the labyrinth of life and feel superior that we've done so much 'better'. Our shallow sense of superiority is usually short lived, however. We eventually figure out that we are making trivial comparisons in an attempt to feed our weak egos. Did we really do any "better"? Everyone is different. If a person were born in a ghetto, then earning a degree from a community college and working loyally at a middle class job is heroic and quite an accomplishment. On the other hand, being born into a family of privilege and being able to turn a $1 million loan from your grandfather into a $100 million hedge fund may be far less of an accomplishment. It's all relative. It depends on the context of a person's life. So it is a waste of time when you compare yourself to someone else and start thinking, "Why couldn't I have done as well?" You're just beating yourself up. You don't know what special talents or privileges that other person had to accomplish what he or she did. If you had a god's eye view of the situation, you might find that the other person you admire and exalt so dearly may be a complete failure upon careful examination and comparison to people of similar backgrounds, talents, and status. Ultimately, you'll never know whether you are better or worse off than someone else by any objective criteria. It's all merely subjective in the end, fixed in time and context. And if it is just arbitrary in the end, then why compare yourself to others, and more importantly, why even care?
Thanks for letting me post my comment, David. I never get to follow up on stuff I've written for Innerworth. (And by the way, Jack hasn't worked with us at Innerworth for a little while, but he made an important contribution and his efforts are still seen in the website today. So if you see Jack, tell him hello for me.)
Michael S. Shopshire, Ph.D.
Editor in chief
Innerworth.com
Sorry to have 'found' you, Michael, but I am glad I did. Please feel welcome to drop in at any time, and offer your comments or insights on any topic.
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Occasionally, I do a Google search on Innerworth to see what articles subscribers have decided to re-post. Some people write in to Innerworth.com asking me to reveal who writes most of the daily columns. I never reveal myself, but if someone finds this post, well fine. You've found my secret. So the column David posted is particularly meaningful to me. Sure, it's about trading on the surface, but it covers a deep philosophical issue I've been pondering: Each person has his or her own gifts, talents, and resources, and thus, only we can determine our own unique self-worth. Oftentimes, we spend our lives fruitlessly looking outward for worth and acceptance. Do I make enough money? Did I "make it" yet? Will I ever do better than my neighbor? But comparisons with others are ultimately useless. Sometimes we can feel a temporary sense of pride when we meet someone on the labyrinth of life and feel superior that we've done so much 'better'. Our shallow sense of superiority is usually short lived, however. We eventually figure out that we are making trivial comparisons in an attempt to feed our weak egos. Did we really do any "better"? Everyone is different. If a person were born in a ghetto, then earning a degree from a community college and working loyally at a middle class job is heroic and quite an accomplishment. On the other hand, being born into a family of privilege and being able to turn a $1 million loan from your grandfather into a $100 million hedge fund may be far less of an accomplishment. It's all relative. It depends on the context of a person's life. So it is a waste of time when you compare yourself to someone else and start thinking, "Why couldn't I have done as well?" You're just beating yourself up. You don't know what special talents or privileges that other person had to accomplish what he or she did. If you had a god's eye view of the situation, you might find that the other person you admire and exalt so dearly may be a complete failure upon careful examination and comparison to people of similar backgrounds, talents, and status. Ultimately, you'll never know whether you are better or worse off than someone else by any objective criteria. It's all merely subjective in the end, fixed in time and context. And if it is just arbitrary in the end, then why compare yourself to others, and more importantly, why even care?
Thanks for letting me post my comment, David. I never get to follow up on stuff I've written for Innerworth. (And by the way, Jack hasn't worked with us at Innerworth for a little while, but he made an important contribution and his efforts are still seen in the website today. So if you see Jack, tell him hello for me.)
Michael S. Shopshire, Ph.D.
Editor in chief
Innerworth.com
posted by David M Gordon | 8:26 AM
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