Want to guarantee that you poison your mind, body, and soul?
Compare yourself to others. The poison enters your bloodstream instantly.
Eventually, of course, your system neutralizes it. Alas, the damage is done.
One thought is enough: “While I’m still (negative), someone else is already (positive).”
Let’s call this the problem of horizontal orientation. You look around and find someone who is “better” than you.
“Better” supposedly means more perfect, more whole, more ideal than you.
In effect, for a while you make that other person your god. Moreover, a pagan god: cold, judgmental, cruel, and angry.
But intuitively, you know he is human. Which means he has flaws. You just have to wait until he shows weakness and...
“The victim always longs to trade places with the oppressor,” a wise psychotherapist once explained to me. This god was artificially created, and therefore, inevitably, the god must be killed.
False orientation cannot help but lead to some form of violence. And it all began so innocently: you simply looked sideways.
Instead of looking up. At whom?
Choose for yourself which language feels most comfortable: psychological, philosophical, metaphysical, or religious.
The main thing is that now you have a vertical orientation. This kind of comparison doesn’t poison you. Instead it inspires you to develop and grow upward.
Sincerely yours,
-Alexander
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.
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