"I am better than you"....are you REALLY?

I hear voices in my head all the time. Yes, I do. But before you go off judging me as mental, do consider this. We all hear voices in our heads, frequently. Every single one of us. Picture this– you are at this year’s work holiday party with your spouse. You look around you and see the familiar faces of your friends…or whatever they really are to you. Then the voices start, “ That’s a nice saree, but I don’t know….the color isn’t right on her. She is much too dark for that and besides, she really shouldn’t be wearing such a transparent saree with her love handles. So inappropriate for work and so unprofessional. Hopefully I look better than that.” If you’re a guy, it probably goes more like, “ That guy is such a schmooze! Look at him sucking up to the big guys, talking about golf that he really is terrible at, trying to get into the “boys club”. No wonder he went from driving that crappy little corolla to his new and flashy BMW today.Well, I better get going and do some damage control myself, or I’ll be stuck in this crappy job for a good while.” Sound familiar? Even if it doesn’t, all of us engage in some form of comparison with people we think are our equals (or better than us but refuse to admit it) at something or the other and that is something no one can deny, myself included.

Each of us has something we are insecure about– how much money we have, what we look like, what our relationship status is, what our kids are like, etc. Whenever we see someone who has what we don’t have, we hear the voices in our heads trying to convince us that we are somehow better. Maybe the tendency to compare ourselves to others is culturally ingrained in us– right from when we are infants (with our parents trying to show off our ability to point to a fan when someone says “FAN” at the age of 13 months) to our adulthood when we are being compared with the neighbor, Sheela Aunty’s kids, who are “so well off and have married good Indians and have 3 children by the age of 30”. Comparing oneself to others is taken to an extreme in our culture, to the extent that a set of parents I knew in India sent letters to the entire family at the end of the school year, to let them know that their son came second or third instead of first in class (there is a ranking system as opposed to a GPA system in Indian schools), in middle school, to embarrass the child into working harder!

It is no surprise that we grow up to be insecure, constantly trying to prove something to ourselves or to the world– buying a Porsche when you can’t afford it, acting like you’re 16 when you are 45, proving that you are a social butterfly when in reality you are really lonely……essentially, what we are doing is trying to cover up our shortcomings by overcompensating in other ways and being the “I am better than you” person. In the business world we are constantly told to build on our strengths and only manage our weaknesses, but we do exactly the opposite by feeding our insecurities. But who are we really proving anything to? And who are we hurting in the end? The insecurity-overcompensation-judgment-insecurity vicious cycle never ends. I know I never feel better when I belittle someone to make myself look only slightly better. And I know you don’t either. In reality, we all know that you win some and you lose some. I have something you don’t have, but you have something I don’t. Yet, we continue to lie to ourselves…and eventually convince ourselves that we are better. Better than our friends, better than our family members, better than everyone who truly is better than us, because we are too weak to accept the truth.

This New Year, I hope to break the cycle. I hope to be strong. I hope to look at others in a positive light, learning from them what I don’t know, and offering in return what I do. Accepting in myself what I don’t have, and appreciating what I do. I hope to focus on what my strengths are and control my weaknesses. I hope to put an end to the irrational voices in my head. I hope to keep up with myself, and let the Joneses keep up with themselves………..after all, it is my life, and I need to be happy.

About the Author

Aditi Raghuram Has Written 17 Articles For Us!

Aditi was born and raised in Bangalore/Mysore, and moved to the U.S. 10 years ago for a doctoral degree in Psychology. Like all “good” desis, her focus was on getting that degree, getting a job, getting a Green Card, and making tons of money. Only two degrees, and a series of life circumstances later, did she truly recognize her passion for studying and understanding human behavior. She graduated in 2009 with her Ph.D in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Today, Aditi is first and foremost, an eager student of human behavior, and will remain one for the rest of her life. Being a cook, a singer, and an aspiring “let’s change the world” agent, all come later. She is also the overworked lead editor of Desi Living.

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