We have often heard the saying, “Everyone is unique”. But let’s try to question this. Is this really true? Okay, very much debatable! But, let’s proceed with it slowly.
We grow up in a society where we face comparison knowingly or unknowingly. No one can escape the trap of comparison. Comparison with a second person for grades, for projects, for skills, for the job, for salary, and whatnot. But, then we decide, or let’s say realize that this is not the correct way we are seeing things. We now understand that each of us is unique. Yes, it is true to some extent. We are unique in the way we think, in the way we perceive a situation, the talent we have, the skills we acquire, and the level of our creativity. But, this uniqueness is not out of birth, it is developed.
When we say each of us is different, we start imagining a situation, where we all have everything different. We think that the kind of situations we are in is less likely to be experienced by others or maybe, at least not at that point in time. Sometimes, we come across some difficult situations and we are stuck, we might feel low and might feel that we are the one who is stuck here, there are people out there with a very smooth and happy life with no difficult situation arising in their life. But, the thing is that life offers the same set of problems in each one’s life and the no. of problems with the same difficulty level is also the same. We all experience ‘the same‘. We all come across similar situations in our lives and then label them as “good” or “bad” according to our personal opinion. Now, we call them, good or bad experiences and then count the number of bad experiences we had, to classify our lives as a ‘happy life’ or ‘struggling life’.
To better understand, think of life as a game. We all are players of the same game. Initially, we don’t know whether we will find the game interesting or not but, we all need to start playing. Then, we proceed with playing the game. We all come across different levels of the game in order of increasing difficulty. Some are playing the game with great enthusiasm and interest, collecting a lot of gems, health/lives, and rewards, which will be helpful for them in coming levels. While some are going at the same pace with quite low enthusiasm, hardly collecting gems and lives, or they are stuck at a particular level. Those who have collected rewards and lives can now use these in the difficult levels of the game too, to easily clear that level. But, those who were not able to collect rewards are stuck there watching their fellow reaching higher levels. Some of those in the lower levels of the game can again try the previous levels and collect gems, learn the strategy, and move forward, while some of them are tired and can’t play the game more and they quit. This is how the game goes on.
So, we all are playing the same game. We all come across the same situations and the same difficulties. The thought that we are the one coming across the difficulties of life arises because we don’t have enough knowledge of others’ lives. We only see their lives from outside. We can say we know the points of each player in the game (it is there on the scoreboard), but what we actually don’t is the details, i.e. how much gems, lives, and rewards each of them have collected. We all started from the same point and proceeded along the same direction but eventually end up getting different results. The gems, lives, and rewards that we collected on our way and the attempt we made for it kept us making different from each other. So, if you look at those who reached the final level, they may have different skills and talents because of the way in which they proceeded but they have similar perceptions.
International Journal of Research (IJR) 