Eureka

To compare is to kill so many possibilities. So, it's late at night, I struggle to continue sleeping because dreaming and thinking are the same. I start thinking about comparisons. What do comparisons do? How do they work in the brain? Why do parents compare their children? Why do we compare our parents?

One of the first exercises I did in English back in Los Angeles was a writing exercise of comparing and contrasting. My teacher was a great humble man who inspired us to learn. He had to ask me to stop participating in his class once because I was so talkative and I wouldn't give other people the opportunity to talk. His classes were inspiring. I read Steinbeck for the first time in his class. We talked about philosophy. He took care of me one time by giving me some painkillers as he saw that I was in pain.

Comparing is not fair. My mom used to compare me to my cousins. I hated that. Comparing is, however, inevitable. We compare today to yesterday. The new shoes or dress to the old ones. We compare our past to our present. We imagine that we can compare our today with our future. We compare people and situations. We compare jobs. We compare our salaries. We compare our reactions to other people's reactions. We are comparing beings, but I insist: comparing is an unfair measurement method.

Maybe we should contemplate instead of comparing. Life could be better, perhaps, if we refrained ourselves from comparing and instead just contemplated the beauty of our days.