Who or what is your benchmark?

[Donte]

Today has been one of those days that the weather can deceive you greatly. Opened my blinds upon waking up and saw the cloudy sky with dark clouds above. When I opened my windows the wind swept through the house and even though it isn’t cold, the temperature has surely dropped a lot since the high 30s we had yesterday.

After my morning coffee, I decided to take my pup for his long overdue walk! (It's past midday and we usually go for a walk early each morning). Gotta love the Sunday sleep ins.

Undecisive of what to wear as the sudden drop in temperature always throws me out of orbit, I put on a track suit and grabbed a jacket as you can never be prepared in this city with the unpredicability of weather and especially in autumn.

Upon walking to the park I started observing what others were wearing to find out if my judgement was right. (You know how we continually compare ourselves with those around us in order to feel normal?). Anyway, some were in summer attire while others were wearing long sleeves or light jackets. As I said, it’s very hard to align yourself with the elements when you live in this city.

Upon arriving at the park the sun started appearing shyly but steadily behind the heavy clouds as the wind pushed the darkness away towards the north. Simultaneously I felt the level of humidity rising. I became progressively hotter and hotter and started taking layers off. I was yet once more unprepared for this weather. I wasn’t ready. I miscalculated and misjudged the situation. I based my decision on whatever I thought was happening instead of checking the weather report and getting the facts prior to making my decision.

So, how often does this happen to us in so many other areas of our life? Relationships, children, work, health, mental health etc. How often we are influenced by external factors? Culture, religion, family, friends, peers etc becoming our benchmark. We compare and judge our appearance, performance, issues etc with everyone else’s to find out if we are ok, to define ourselves, to evaluate our situation. And we often get it wrong. We fail. We get deceived. We overthink and criticize and lose our calm. The world steals our peace because we look for our measurement at something ‘out there’ instead of something inside us.

How can we learn to listen to our intuition, our mind and our heart? How can we stop comparing and judging ourselves according to what others tell us and tap into who we truly are? I’d love to hear your thoughts.