“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt.

Comparison. Feeling inferior.

These words speak of the thoughts that cripple me. Nowdays, I recognise this more often, than before. It seems like a pattern that suddenly makes me feel 'off' even when I am doing great or seems to be all pumped up with what I am doing. I then wonder 'why'? Why do I feel inferior?

"Anyone can do better than you! You are not good enough. Stop feeling good about yourself. There are people who will do this even better."

"Am I even good at something? Anything? But wait, aren’t people also good at it?"

These thoughts really trouble me, like a buzz, blurring my senses. Regardless of people appreciating, acknowledging my efforts and recognising me, I still feel a sense of inadequacy and then this thought pops up, 'It is not a big deal, I mean there is someone out there who could have done better than me’. Hence, I refuse to acknowledge my efforts and tiny successes by outrightly sidelineing it or even if I do acknowledge, I sideline it almost immediately because I don’t want to make myself feel 'cocky' or 'arrogant' or something!

I wonder whether I am even good at something or something that I can hone, refine and become better at which also adds value to people and further society.

When I reflect on the reasons or causes of feeling this way, I think about my childhood days. In my School, people used to compare, a lot. Competition was cut-throat and mistakes were usually unacceptable and regarded as failures. I was a shy and submissive child, unable to speak up because of the fear of making mistakes or being ridiculed or humiliated but my peers were confident, out-spoken and just brilliant in all front. Naturally, I felt inadequate and compared. I wonder now whether 'I was taught to compare' or 'Our brains are wired to compare’. Even if latter is true, shouldn’t we have been taught to compare things in its true value and need rather than people and/or ourselves with others?

I am still exploring these answers as well as attempting to ask the questions leading to the truth.

What is the root of 'comparision’?
Am I really unique?
What am I good at? How do I know that?
Am I really capable of doing anything and everything?
What can I do to add value to people and society?
How do I make myself feel content with who I am?
How do I accept myself and yet become better every moment?
How do I not seek validation from others always and trust myself too?
How do I know my needs better and respond to them for myself to be better?
How do I stop comparing and belittling myself?

I am just sure of one thing about me, I am a seeker and I love to unravel the answers by reading between lines, sensing beyond comprehension and navigating depths of my own self through living in the moment with others and with patience and perseverance.

Here I am. Writing this. Letting it out there. Seeking answers and framing questions to unravel truth because I feel that this is the 'conditioned pattern' of thought since my childhood that I want to break and become better of who I already am.