I remember a founder of a technology company whose quote became a standard in he was notorious, but actually is practiced by most others all across business, " It is not enough that we succeed, our competitors must fail."

If you start to think of it, we are in the golden age of living. If I consciously think about my circumstances today compared to 25 years ago, I do have lots more. Some of the people dear to me have passed on, but I have a bigger family, and more friends than ever. The financials have also been good. Yet, I find myself reminiscing with increasing frequency with my high school batchmates reliving many of the moments of our high school when we think we were deliriously happy and blessed ( though we did not know it at that time supposedly).

 
I also have infinitely more books, more gadgets, more ideas, more activities that keep up excitement and travel to many more places — many things that are guaranteed to increase our happiness, but many times dont’. Some of my former high school friends though could not help making comparisons in their circumstances with their other friends, and I guess that is where many of our ‘unhappiness’ seeps in. I guess at the end of the day, we cannot help comparing ourselves, and it does seem that we should not only have more, but we should also have more than others. We compare our blessings, and start worrying why it could not be more.

It is not enough that we be happy, but that we should be happier than others. And I guess that is what is contributing to our unhappiness. I guess benchmarking if you call it such is important, but maybe there are other ways to benchmarks without contributing to our unhappiness?

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- No Reason to Be Unhappy

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