Opposite of Comparison: Appreciation

A brilliant insight I had during my coaching sessions:

You have a big comparison monster.

What did that mean? Well, I constantly compared myself to everything. In that particular case, I compared myself to my Dad.

By comparing, there’s judgement - how else can one compare? With judgement, it’s a form of violent communication (in the non-violent communication - NVC - form.)

Essentially, I was constantly violent to myself!

🤯

Judgement divides - and I do this a lot, especially as an engineer. A key mantra: “Divide a problem into smaller parts and solve those.”

It works so well that I applied dividing things down everywhere.

Well, judgement is a ‘division’ - so, what’s the “opposite” of dividing?

The opposite of dividing is multiplying - what’s the emotion around that?

Love is that - it’s a form of multiplying and it is inclusive.

How about a more general emotion? One that isn’t so loaded or polarizing (that is another form of judgement!)?

Another emotion that is a bit more general: appreciation.

Aaaah, appreciation - that I can get behind. It’s so inclusive as a word and low key that I can use it almost everywhere I would compare.

“I appreciate this”

That’s something I am working on in my life - comparing less, appreciating more.

I appreciate my life.