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Vishvapani |
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Gordon Brown remarked yesterday that 'laissez-faire has had its day'.
That was just the latest reflection on the society that has been created over recent decades when the free market has dominated and the gap between the richest and the poorest has grown. Research has shown that if that gap is relatively small people feel valued, respected and more connected to society but, conversely, the more unequal a society is the more alienated people feel.
That finding has important implications for social policy, but I'm struck by the implications on another level entirely. If people in general derive their sense of self worth by comparing themselves with others, then that tendency is at work on you and me as well. It's hard to be immune and we are all susceptible, but you have to look carefully to notice the signs -- competitiveness, preoccupation with status, the anxious need to keep up with one's peers, sneaking resentments at their successes and schadenfreude when they trip up.
These are perennial human tendencies and so pervasive that we hardly register them in our own lives or those of the people around us. "What's he worth?" we ask of a person. 'Is he a 'somebody' or a 'nobody'?" Finding a sound basis for a sense of self worth means not comparing ourselves with other people at all, and as the Buddha astutely commented, that applies whether we consider ourselves superior to others, or inferior or even equal to them.
What remains is the inner dimension of the heart and the mind. Perhaps your key to that inner dimension is music, or nature, or solitude or honest communication. The important thing is to slow down, notice what's really happening in your experience and reflect on what it's telling you.
For Buddhists this process often includes practising meditation in a way that develops patience, generosity and maturity. It also brings compassion, which is a big word, but experience shows that before we can love others we must learn to love ourselves, just a little. It really isn't selfish to do so.
n the inner economy, the tendency to compare runs up an emotional deficit, but responding to oneself with kindness fosters an inner abundance and a surplus that others can share.