I was reading a friend's blog on how much money can make one happy..and that got me thinking. What exactly is happiness? Is it a state of mind, or a result or something that we own or possess or have achieved? What makes us truly happy? And thinking about that led me to come across this rather interesting answer-whenever I compare myself to others, I seem unhappier than my reference point, specifically a reference point that I think is at a higher level than me.

Social comparisons can happen in both ways, with a higher or a lower status reference point. For me, it doesnt make me any happier to see anyone worse off than me, but it would make me unhappy to see someone who in my view is "doing better" either professionally or personally or both. It happened to me a while ago that a rather boastful friend got online and was showing off her new accomplishments in the recent past, a new husband, a new job, new everything..reminds me of that famous scene from Deewar between Sashi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan:

AB: mere paas building hai, bank balance hai...tumhare pas kya hai?
SK: mere paas maa hai (if u r the MTV types like me, u will probably say..CAN U REPEAT THE QUESTION?! hehe!)

but yes, SK's reply makes total sense, its about what we have that we should be happy for. Whenever the urge comes to compare ourselves with others, I have the following pointers that I want to highlight, more for myself than for anyone else, but having written it out and posting it online, maybe it will enable me to change the way I see certain things..

1) Capitalize on your strengths. God or Nature (whatever you believe in!) gives us all our strengths to work with. Identify them and use them.

2) Tell yourself daily, I am my own person and can make a difference to the world around me.

For now, I intend to practise these p0ints and remind myself of these insights from time to time, so I am not caught up in the social comparison trap again.

To a better view of the world!