One Reality. Many Interpretations.
Sometimes happiness is just one floor away.
Say you run into your college mate.
“What do you do?”, you ask.
“Oh, I’ve been at Moonshot Inc. since 2021”.
Yes, that company. The one whose stock shot up like no one would believe.
He’s of course done very well. Windfall well.
And for a minute, you might feel jealousy or regret. You might also feel the urge to find any negative news you can about his company - just so that you can feel better.
This is the default perspective that most human beings operate from. Social media, news, bar conversations - all push this narrative of achievement.
But what if this is just one of the many perspectives? What if each perspective is on a floor and you can choose which floor you want to be on?
This default floor is the Achievement floor - where everything is measured in salary bumps, stock options, titles, and fancy cars. On this floor, your college mate’s story may feel like a missed train that you should’ve sprinted for.
You can decide to walk up to the Existential floor. Here, you could argue that no one knows the true purpose of life and everyone lives a short span, enacts their story and then dies. So, your friend’s story is just that- a story and yours is just that, another story. So is for the other 8 billion people. Just a story. Not better or worse.
Or you could shift to the Gratitude floor where you could say, “I’m lucky to have enough. To be here. To be healthy. To have a job that pays the bills. This is Good Enough”
A couple of levels down in the Curiosity floor, your college mate’s story becomes interesting, not threatening. What did he learn? How did he go about it? What would I want to learn from his experience?
You could also take the elevator to the Compassion floor where you don’t argue with any of your thoughts. You just empathize with the feeling and say, “It is what it is. I don’t feel great about it right now but I’ll give it time.”
Finally, there is a secret floor in the basement called the “So What?” floor. In this floor, all you do is ask “So what?” to any thoughts and do that repeatedly till the negative thought loses energy. On this floor, you finally realize, it’s not really a big deal.
So, next time something stings - someone else's success, a rejection, a comparison, ask: What floor am I on right now? What floor do I want to go to?
A different perspective might just be a few flights of stairs away!
Exercise: Look at the visual again. Which floor do you end up on when you miss your flight and which floor would you like to be on?