Confusing comparisons
Recently in a casual discussion with a friend I came across a very interesting thing. On a usual cup of coffee with my friends we were discussing various issues when suddenly the topic of weight came up. Women being what they are, we all started rattling about our own struggles with weight loss. One of my friends seemed to be very disinterested in this discussion. When we asked for her opinion, she just shrugged her shoulders and said,” If you compare yourself with the size zero avatars you are definitely FAT. But if you compare yourself with someone fatter than yourself, you are not. It’s about what you are comparing yourself with!”
I was dumbstruck listening to this. It was such an excellent way of looking at things and put across so nicely. This thought refused to leave me long after I had reached home. Her words kept on echoing in my ears. It was an eye opening experience for me.
Why did I never think about this before? This seemed to be such a perfect solution to so many problems that we are surrounded with. I think all of us have fallen into the rut of making simple things complex. You remember the story we were told in school. How do we make a line shorter without touching it?? By drawing a bigger line below it. Similarly how do you count your blessings? By comparing yourself with the less fortunate.
Luckily I got a chance to try this school of thought with another friend of mine. She was going through a very rough phase professionally and she kept on crying about how she had reached a dead end where things just didn’t seem to improve. I decided to highlight the better aspects of her life which she had chosen to ignore. I began with the wonderful parents she had, added a loving fiancé to the list, along with some caring siblings and ended it with the fabulous friends she could count on always. She suddenly stopped crying and was gapping at me with eyes wide open. For a moment I got scared wondering incase I had pressed the wrong button. And the next moment she started hugging me and thanking me profusely. She felt that she had been a fool this long to not see the good side and only see the rough phase that life had presented her with. She finally concluded that with such people around her these rough phases are not difficult to cross. I was smiling from within and thinking, “WOW!! This works.”
And since then I haven’t left a single chance to implement this lesson and trust me the results are spectacular. It seems I am living in a different world altogether which is full of endless possibilities. Life’s simple ways of teaching us such beautiful lessons leave me amazed.
After this experience, whenever anyone tells me I am FAT; I smile back and say, “Definitely, I am PHAT (Pretty Hot and Tempting)….Thanks for the compliment!”
