Living Like Coder

“He’s super super smart. He’s a cheetah.”, dad tells us for maybe like the tenth time in the day, after talking to his new intern.

The entire WFH situation has given me some understanding of dad’s work and office, and by some I mean a lot. So much so, that my and my sister’s recent game is to guess who dad is talking to on the phone. It’s fun, give it a try.

My dad had hired a work-from-home intern during the pandemic. He’s smart and seemed nice until the time I got to know more about him from dad. Things started to go downhill after that. The problem was that he got even nicer! Exactly. 

Now you must be like hold up, what’s the problem then? The problem is that he is way too nice to be around my dad, or just any parent in general. What I mean is that he’s a college guy who is doing way beyond just good in his internship and is so passionate about music that he can play like at least 3 instruments competently. Also did I mention the fact that he’s a coder and absolutely loves coding? Possibly even a genius one for all I know. We’ll call him coder for simplicity and the obvious reason that he is one.

He’s damn sharp. There’s no denying that. Once my dad sent a clipping of a financial article in his office WhatsApp group for some client reference and Coder replied saying that there’s an error in this, the calculations don’t add up. And he sent the correction too. You see what I’m talking about here? 

Coder talks to my dad A.K.A. his boss about book recommendations and trying out new things like waking up at 5 in the morning, which is absolutely fine until dad tells me about it. Dad never compares me to him and I know that he never will. I even like listening to dad tell me about Coder’s intelligence until the time I start thinking about the level of achievement Coder is on, and why am I not on that level?

Honestly I am super amazed by his capabilities and I think he wasn’t the problem. My problem was me. My problem was that I wasn’t so fond of him openly (even if I low-key admire his attitude towards work) because I felt I wasn’t as good or even half as good as him. 

I think all of us have felt this at some point or the other in our lives. We think why can’t we be as good as him or her? Or maybe we’ve thought this person is so amazing, I wish I could be more like them. Isn’t it? And you know sometimes we even get mildly intolerant towards the other person even though they are doing nothing but their work, that too efficiently.

I did some pondering on this prevalent  human tendency to get bitter towards people who are doing better than us. And I thought all of us are pretty decent human beings and surely there must be a way to improve ourselves other than just sulking and getting envious of other people.

Guess what? There is indeed a solution.

Warning – It is quite different from what it may appear initially.

It is making comparisons. Yes, you heard it right, comparison. But it’s not comparing yourself (and lowering your self esteem in the process) to the other person. That has never done any good. 

It is comparing your current situation to your own ideal situation. A situation which shows how things should be. The ideal situation does not mean a far-sighted vision that you can achieve someday. Ideal situation is just how things ought to be in your present circumstances. And it is very individual. Even though you and I could be living in the same locality, studying the same subjects, in the same school, our ideal situations will be very different. It might as well be safe to assume that both the situations will be absolutely different.

The moment you figure out your ideal situation, you’ll start seeing the gaps. And once you figure out the gaps, then filling them up is no task honestly. The thing we struggle with is figuring what we lack, isn’t it? 

Take this image for example. Left one could be the current situation of your bedroom (no, I’m not attacking you personally, this just a hypothetical example). And keeping in mind the right image, or the ideal situation, you could conveniently fix up your room.

source: https://metro.co.uk/2019/09/14/mum-shares-incredible-one-day-transformation-autistic-daughters-messy-room-10742630/

Also note how the ideal situation is the visualisation of the best possible case of your current bedroom and not a vision of a lavish bedroom with a walk-in closet. There’s nothing wrong with having a vision like that, in fact one should have a vision to be able to reach there. But it is unrealistic, in ideal to your current situation. You can maybe achieve that vision by achieving and then upgrading your ideal situation a number of times.

Likewise, my ideal situation happened to be Coder’s current situation. With its help I can see what more I need to do. I can see that like him, if my superior, teachers in my case, has asked for some work, then I should submit it way before the deadline (which for the record I am floundering at right now). I know that when I’m asked to make one post, I should turn in four. 

Go ahead, imagine your highest self and then show up as them. When you think you’re not doing something right, or you feel like you should be doing something but you aren’t, then think. Think what would the ‘ideal you’ do. And just do that. It’ll be a piece of cake to figure out what’s wrong or missing.

So edge forward and be a better you!