Blinded by Comparison

" So the unwanting soul sees what's hidden, and the ever-wanting soul sees only what it wants." 

- Lao Tzu

In society today, due to social media and the amount of content available to the public, it is easy for individuals to compare their successes, failures, accomplishments, experiences, etc. with others. Taking a close look at the Generation Y group of individuals specifically, it seems to be a necessity to post everything we are doing to the public and even a step further, get validation through the comments and amount of likes or favorites our posts (lives) are getting. This sense of openness among our generation is unique and yields many positive things while also yielding some harmful habits such as constant comparison to others and the lives they are living. With all of this said, Leo Tolstoy's How Much Land Does a Man Need? illustrates how toxic a constant life of comparison and greed can become. Pakhom looses sight of all he has, simply because he looked to others and convinced himself he did not have enough and needed more. 

            Greed, being one of the deadly sins, can be destructive. Through the life of Pakhom and the decisions he continued to make, we see an evident example of this. From the beginning when we were introduced to Pakhom, he was presented as someone who had the feeling of jealousy of his older sister who seemed to “have it all together.” This was the first warning sign that while Pakhom may have had more intangibly, he was blinded by this jealousy and greed to be more and have more than what his sister had tangibly. This comparison and longing to live a life full of acres of land and money, led Pakhom to abandon his life for what seemed to be something better. The greed that consumed Pakhom began to give him motivation, but greed could only take him so far and as we see at the end of the story, while he won all the land, he began to loose him self and eventually lost his life. This is so powerful. The more we long for what other’s have and compare our lives to that of others, the more we loose ourselves and our ability to better our lives with what we have. This relates directly to the hierarchy of needs that are thought to give us a life fulfillment. The closer we get to self-actualization through meeting each of our basic needs, the happier we can become with who we are and the life we are living. Pakhom could not rest in his own strengths and treasures that his life held. He believed that the top of his hierarchy was land and wealth which ultimately led him to never be satisfied with what he had because he just wanted more.

            As Lao Tzu stated, “the ever-wanting soul sees only what it wants.” I think this truly captures all that Pakhom displayed through his greed and longing for more land. He was blinded to all that he had in his life because without money and a lot of land, in his eyes, he had nothing. Many times in life, it is easy to think we do not have as much as the person next to us and we long for more money, more recognition, more friends, more responsibilities, etc. when in reality, we can receive “more” simply by investing in the people, experiences, and strengths that we currently have and make the most of those. Reaching that point of self actualization will make it easier to keep our eyes on the things that matter and not blind us by the sin that is greed.