The Race Nobody Asked Us to Run

Comparison can turn a satisfying life into one that suddenly feels inadequate. In his column 'From the Silence Within', Santosh Nair reflects on ambition, envy, success and the question of whether we are pursuing what truly matters to us or simply keeping pace with everyone else.

A little girl came home from school holding a drawing she had made. It was a house with a red roof, two trees and a yellow sun. She ran to her mother and said, “Look, Mummy, I made this!” Her mother smiled, but before saying anything else, asked, “What did your teacher give you? Did you get first prize?” The girl looked at her drawing again. A moment earlier, she had been happy because she had made something beautiful. Now she was wondering whether another child had made something better. Nothing had changed in the drawing. The house was still red, the trees were still green and the sun was still shining. Only the child’s happiness had changed. Without realising it, she had learned one of life’s most troubling lessons: sometimes, what we have done does not seem good enough until we know what somebody else has done.

A child learns to walk without knowing when another child took the first step. One falls after three steps, another after ten. Nobody tells the child that walking later makes the journey less valuable. But as children grow, the measurements begin. Marks in school, admission to college, the first salary, the size of a house, the car outside it and eventually the achievements of one’s own children. A father who once worried whether his son would learn to speak now worries whether he earns more than his friend’s son. A woman who was once happy to have a home begins feeling uncomfortable when she visits a neighbour’s larger apartment. Slowly, ordinary happiness becomes something that needs to be checked against another person’s life. We enter a........

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