January 24, 2008

• Comparison

  WHICH DOG WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE?
  VS.

  THEY ARE BOTH SHADOW!

  I can't believe Shadow was so dark when she was a kid...

  It's been a while since my last post; I'm working right now and since Chinese New Year is coming, the business here is too quiet and I'm bored.

  But then I still have to sit here, research, write e-mails, prepare power point slides that some of these clients will steal and use as their own. So I decided to slack off and do something un-productive.

  Anyway, I have been thinking a lot; I keep telling myself that I need to catch up, that I need to be in the best possible position and create opportunities, get deals done, be successful...and so on; I started thinking about how other people become successful.

  I've always wondered what it takes for anyone to be successful; and it's one of these questions that we always know but we don't know. I Google'd it a dozen times and most of the on-line sources tell me: "Confidence." (and other things like passion, hardwork...that I'll probably brag about later)

  I don't know exactly how people view me, I say I don't care but really I do, and I only like to know the "good" attributes anyway. But I must admit that I have pretty low self-esteem; I think it started out when I first moved to America. Everything was so different, I was scared of a lot of things. I developed this habit of avoiding eye contact; I simply couldn't look people in the eyes because I fear what they think of me. It was not obvious, but it was enough for me to know that it bothers me when I have to make eye contact.

  Then there is the public speech problem. I remember I almost fainted when I had to public speak in ESL classes, all the way up till Hayward, I never conquered a stutter-free presentation. I had gotten better, but I never could be confident enough like some of my other group-mates. I admire great public speakers, it is something I will have to always work on.

  My low self-esteem is hidden most of the time, I try not to show it, but I know this is really affecting my ability and my potentials. I need to know why and how I can be better than myself. So I went online and realized one thing: "Comparison".

  I was at Facebook, they have this fun thing about comparing friends. It's a series of question in manners like "Who would you rather date?" and then two of your friends pop up, follow with another question and so on. (similar to the Shadow vs. Shadow question.) The accumulated answers from your friends will account to your "votes", and then you will get the final rank, for example, I am #4 most talkative for the result. (Which is a joke by the way, how can I ever get below number one? These people obviously don't know what they're doing, I forgive them though.)

  Anyway, I found that fun and I continued taking the tests; and I started wondering about how other view me? and it was then I realized why it was important to me. One of the most obvious trait of myself is that I tend to consciously or subconsciously compare myself with others. In a nicer way I'd say I like "competition", but it's a different thing, because in competition, one actually tries to be better than the other, whereas in my "comparison", I just compare people with myself.

  I think most people do this and think it's not a big deal, but I sometimes do this to the extreme. Even when I watch movies, read comics or whatnot, I subconsciously compare myself to real or fictional characters. I wonder what I am better than him/her at, and what they're better than me at. And the result for most of the time? "I am inferior than hem/her."

  I think over a long haul of comparison, one develops an internal standard for good and bad, and for me, the more negative results I measure of myself, the weaker and lower I value myself. The result is that I perceive myself as inefficient and insufficient. And that's the beauty of the human brain, the more we believe something to be true, sometimes it just becomes true.

  My dad told me not to compare myself to him, he told me it will confuse you, I have to think like a confident person and figure out how to beat him, like he beat his dad (not physically) instead of feeling worthless.

  If I continue to compare myself with others, I will eventually only feel good around true degenerates, and that is tragic.

  To make my point, the following questions are equally absurd:

  "Am I better looking than Takeshi Kaneshiro?" --> "Am I better looking than my girlfriend's ex?"
  "Am I smarter than Einstein?" --> "Am I smarter than that guy from my work/class?"
  "Do I have more money than Bill Gates?" --> "Do I have more money than my dad?"

  Instead, we should really ask ourselves:

  "What can I do to make myself feel more attractive?"
  "What is intelligence and what can I do to improve my way of thoughts?"
  "How can I make more money?"

  It's at these moments I realize how great NIKE's tag line had always been. "JUST DO IT"

  It's freaking beautiful.

  Anyway I've blabbered again, I like writing more and more; sometimes I fear losing my English ability as I can't write Chinese characters fluently now; Malaysia is a country of multiple languages, and no disrespect, they are not too fluent at all spoken languages, practices are important when everyone around me speaks poor Chinese AND English, again no disrespect to any Malaysian, I mean, hey, at least a regular Chinese Malaysian speaks or at least understands English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Taiwanese, and Malay fluently. That's 6 in 1 man!

  Alright I'm going to smoke, peace out!
  
  

  • 4:10 am
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