Saturday, August 17, 2013

Good Better Best

In this world of hi-fi competition, everyone is busy comparing oneself with others in terms of talents, skills, ideas, performances and so on. Each one wants to know how good s/he is in whatever s/he is doing. Nobody wants to be told that someone else is better than her/him. Everyone craves to believe that s/he is the best in the business s/he is in. There is no perfect specific scale to rate anyone numerically. Even though there is one, it is impossible to have all the stochastic variables required to measure perfectly the performance from all dimensions and rate one person against the other. Hence comparison itself is a redundant process, on which many spend years of their lives in vain.

When an amateur starts a new work, be it some kind of practising a skill or trying to develop a new talent or in sports, his peers support him, encourage him and appreciate him so that he improves. In fact, there is no benchmark to compare with anyone. Hence the word 'good' comes into picture. The moment he rises to a level of competency among his peers, the comparison of who is better than whom begins to happen. After swaying through umpteen comparisons, when one out beats the records set by all his predecessors, then he is considered to be the best. However strategic or logical the entire process might sound, it is absolutely relative in its existence. If there were no other people trying or doing the same thing then this amateur wouldn't get promoted to the levels of better or best. The predecessor who cannot compete right now feels that the current champ is a good player than attributing him as the best since no duel has happened between the bests belonging to two different generations.

The moment we measure ourselves in comparison to others we lose the individuality which is a proprietary property of an individual. Good, better and best are just words indicating the relativity between each other. Attributing oneself to any of these words will only freeze our levels. As life itself is a symbol of growth, or rather, I can say it as the process of growth, our capacity levels and performance levels also must be incremented on a regular basis. There is no upper limit to growth and development. It is just as unending as the expansion of the universe. Doing your level best will only draw a particular level for your best performance and conceal the possibility to extend beyond. Let's leave the job of rating to others while we are engaged in improving ourselves in whatever we are doing.

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