No One is a Blank Slate

As is the case with many of my blog posts, I start with something obvious and then extrapolate from there. The observations we reach should be interesting. Let’s begin.

Everyone is their own person. They have their hopes, their dreams, their fears and their biases. A lot of what makes up a person comes from genetics. Their height, their race and their looks are almost solely determined by genetics. Other aspects of the person may come from the environment they grew in, its culture and values. This is all to say a person is many things. But one thing they are not is nothing.

So what does this mean? That means everyone’s baseline is different. Everyone has a ‘normal’ and everything out of that is weird and strange. As the popular George Carlin quote goes — “Anybody driving faster than you is a maniac, and anyone going slower than you is a moron”.

You will note this a lot whenever you travel to a different country/ culture. ‘Culture shock’ is a common feeling among tourists as they discover there are people with different ‘normals’. It can be something as innocent as eating with a fork instead of a spoon to getting to eat everyday at all.

Travelling and meeting different people from various backgrounds helps us broaden our range of various ‘normals’ and thereby increase our knowledge. You don’t necessarily need to change your own ‘normal’ but collecting more tools and using the right one for the right situation is always a smart thing to do.

This goes deeper.

The biggest drive to improve was, is and will always be competition. And to compete, you must compare. Comparision, often derided, isn’t strictly a bad thing. At the end of the day, it is a tool with a right and wrong time to use it.

Now here’s the question. Who do you compare yourself to? That determines what type of person you are. If you compare yourself with people who do worse than you, you will never grow. You may be happy with yourself for being better off. You may even engage in some schadenfreude. However, you are most likely going to stagnate and never truly ascend.

If you compare yourself to someone far above you, congrats! I am happy that you have strong ambitions and the hunger for more. However, it can be risky. The brain will see the huge delta between you and the person you compare yourself with and may shut down. Burning out and quitting is the last thing you want to be doing.

Ideally, the best people to compare yourself with is your peers. People who were/are in the same situation as you and have the same drive as you. Of course, you don’t want to compare yourself with a slacker but that is self evident. Healthy achievable targets are the best motivators to accomplish something. And do you know who is the best person to compare yourself to?

You, yesterday.

It has always been you, my dear reader. Carpe diem.