The motive of this article is to bring forth the idea of “practical relativity”. I’m not daring to stretch the theories of the great Einstein – well you know I am not capable of doing that. Practical relativity here refers to the day to day situations or comparisons that happen among us – inter-personal or intra-personal. For our ease, let us understand inter-personal relativity as the (perceived) difference between two individuals and intra-personal relativity as the difference between two images of a person. To be more precise, we could look at this topic as “social relativity”. The whole idea of this background is to set up a context on what type of relativity I want to elaborate in the following sections of the article.
Sweta is gorgeous. Other girls in her class are jealous of her. Her boyfriend thought she was immensely beautiful until he met his friend’s girlfriend - Preity. Prem is a smart guy. His parents were pleased with his 85% until they found that their friend’s son in Prem’s class had scored 90%. Gopal was thrilled by the silver medal he won in the last year’s swimming championship until he visited his friend’s elder brother to find out a gold medal in swimming – shining on the wall. These scenarios demonstrate some commonly occurring instances of practical relativity in our society. Guys want their girlfriends to look not less than a Miss. World; parents expect their school level sons to be Albert Einstein and daughters to be Marie Curie; sporty guys want to stand as the best in their skills. These examples relate to what I call inter-personal relativity, where the relativity comes into play due to the comparison between individuals.
Another kind of relativity is more interesting. Those in the pursuit of happiness might find this part useful. Unlike inter-personal relativity, which is a hindrance to gratification, intra-personal relativity is a pedestal to boost confidence and self-satisfaction. Instead of comparing ourselves to the so called ideals, it is wiser to see how we compare to the person we were yesterday. As someone has said, “The only person you can be better than is the person you were yesterday.” The rationale is simple. You can be better than you were yesterday because you are the person who understands you the most and knows your weaknesses and limitations well. If you want to be better than someone who you think is “great”, probably you will have to spend the time equal to that person’s age understanding his/her life, limitations and methods they undertook to succeed in things. However, if you take a bypass road and try to guide yourself by intra-personal relativity – a day might come where you find yourself no worse than anyone around. It is practically feasible to make ourselves better than we were the last day no matter the change be huge or minute – the point is you are being “relatively” better. The notion of being better might sound too vague. Let me break that down. You can be better in English than you were yesterday, if you learn a new word today. You can be better in chess than you were yesterday, if you practice two sessions of the game with your elder brother. You can be better in social service than you were yesterday, if you donate that spare coin in your wallet to that beggar. You can be a better son/daughter than you were yesterday, if you save from your daily lunch to buy that pair of shoes for the next Father’s day. You can be a better spouse than you were yesterday, if you leave your work early because your husband/wife is unwell at home.
Whatever I have written so far can be mathematically summed up as: “happiness is inversely proportional to inter-personal relativity and directly proportional to intra-personal relativity.” Inter-personal relativity is the source of dismay and even depression. The reason for this is that we want to achieve something which might not always be under our will or we might find our acquisitions trivial in front of someone who we are envy of. The source of gloom here is the inter-personal relativity. Everyone can meet their expectations only if they avoid the effects of inter-personal relativity. Everyone is perfect in a null set. Satisfaction comes from the ability to settle down to the reality of owns assets. Progress is the measure of how better you are compared to your image from the day before. As mentioned earlier, smallest of the things can make us better and hence help us advance. It is not always necessary to be awarded Nobel prize to progress in Physics – that farmer who built the automated irrigator for the village farms is more worthy for the villagers. It is not always necessary to be Bill Gates for philanthropy - $50 given to a charity can give you a peace of mind than you had yesterday. In short, happiness comes by comparing ourselves to what we were yesterday. The smallest of the achievements and contributions we make every day are the symbols that we are getting better and we are progressing. After all, what we are today is “absolute” and “relatively better” than we were yesterday. This faith in intra-personal relativity gives us true happiness, satisfaction and peace of mind.
© Suman Ojha
All Rights Reserved.
Another kind of relativity is more interesting. Those in the pursuit of happiness might find this part useful. Unlike inter-personal relativity, which is a hindrance to gratification, intra-personal relativity is a pedestal to boost confidence and self-satisfaction. Instead of comparing ourselves to the so called ideals, it is wiser to see how we compare to the person we were yesterday. As someone has said, “The only person you can be better than is the person you were yesterday.” The rationale is simple. You can be better than you were yesterday because you are the person who understands you the most and knows your weaknesses and limitations well. If you want to be better than someone who you think is “great”, probably you will have to spend the time equal to that person’s age understanding his/her life, limitations and methods they undertook to succeed in things. However, if you take a bypass road and try to guide yourself by intra-personal relativity – a day might come where you find yourself no worse than anyone around. It is practically feasible to make ourselves better than we were the last day no matter the change be huge or minute – the point is you are being “relatively” better. The notion of being better might sound too vague. Let me break that down. You can be better in English than you were yesterday, if you learn a new word today. You can be better in chess than you were yesterday, if you practice two sessions of the game with your elder brother. You can be better in social service than you were yesterday, if you donate that spare coin in your wallet to that beggar. You can be a better son/daughter than you were yesterday, if you save from your daily lunch to buy that pair of shoes for the next Father’s day. You can be a better spouse than you were yesterday, if you leave your work early because your husband/wife is unwell at home.
Whatever I have written so far can be mathematically summed up as: “happiness is inversely proportional to inter-personal relativity and directly proportional to intra-personal relativity.” Inter-personal relativity is the source of dismay and even depression. The reason for this is that we want to achieve something which might not always be under our will or we might find our acquisitions trivial in front of someone who we are envy of. The source of gloom here is the inter-personal relativity. Everyone can meet their expectations only if they avoid the effects of inter-personal relativity. Everyone is perfect in a null set. Satisfaction comes from the ability to settle down to the reality of owns assets. Progress is the measure of how better you are compared to your image from the day before. As mentioned earlier, smallest of the things can make us better and hence help us advance. It is not always necessary to be awarded Nobel prize to progress in Physics – that farmer who built the automated irrigator for the village farms is more worthy for the villagers. It is not always necessary to be Bill Gates for philanthropy - $50 given to a charity can give you a peace of mind than you had yesterday. In short, happiness comes by comparing ourselves to what we were yesterday. The smallest of the achievements and contributions we make every day are the symbols that we are getting better and we are progressing. After all, what we are today is “absolute” and “relatively better” than we were yesterday. This faith in intra-personal relativity gives us true happiness, satisfaction and peace of mind.
© Suman Ojha
All Rights Reserved.