On Fear and Love: Comparison is the Thief of Joy

There Are Rules 

Love energy knows that there is a set of rules, but you never have to hold it up in the air and preach about it. You never have to tell loving people that social rules say you cannot hit another person when you’re upset because it would never cross your mind that striking another person would be a way to express those feelings.   

Fearful people get violent. Sometimes you have to remind them that they are violating the law, because that’s the way to respond to fearful energy. It’s the same in the workplace. Fear energy results in people making comparisons – someone else gets more of something than you do. We use a food analogy to illustrate this concept. The only reason you should look at somebody else's bowl is to make sure they have enough food, not to compare it with the fullness or emptiness of your bowl. Love energy allows you to compare yourself to your own standard, otherwise you’ll always be “more” or “less” than. Athletes strive for a “personal best” score and musicians strive for a performance with fewer flaws than the last time. Winning is great, but true satisfaction comes from knowing you gave everything you had.  

It’s Not Fair! 

Last time, we told a story about the concept of fairness. We want you to know that love does not exist in fairness. Life is not fair, and love doesn’t want life to be fair. Love wants life to be unique and meaningful according to your own values. We want our lives to be filled with the things that are precious to us.  

Equity is a word that is used often, and some people equate it with fairness. They are not the same. What we mean is, “I don't want what you have, and I don't want to divvy out all the resources so everybody gets the exact same number. I want to have the resources I need and I want you to have as many resources as you need.” It doesn’t have to be equal in all cases. Love energy says, “As long as we are both fulfilled, I don't need to compare how many resources I have against what you have.” 

Ben illustrated this concept for us: 

I certainly don't need to eat as much as a football linebacker, but if I looked at the linebacker’s plate, I could say how come I didn’t get served all the food?  Well, honestly if I got served that food, I wouldn’t be able to get off the couch!  

His example shows the falseness of comparison. When you don’t have what you want and you're comparing with others you’ll feel like you’ve got the short end of the stick. If you take comparison out of the picture, love tells you to take personal responsibility and go get what you want. And buy some bigger pants while you’re at it! But seriously, it’s no one else’s responsibility. Just because they have something is not the reason that you don’t have it. If you assert yourself to obtain what you need, it doesn’t mean you can take it from someone else. Suppose Ben decided he wanted more food on his plate, and he tried to scrape it off the plate of the linebacker. We suspect that wouldn’t end well, for a number of reasons, but mostly because the linebacker would not have enough calories to sustain his physique and perform successfully at his job. 

Scarcity and Abundance 

Another way our culture has tried to explain this concept is through terms like scarcity and abundance. Those buzzwords are rooted in fear and love, but people don’t realize that love energy trusts and believes that there's more than enough (abundance) for everybody and even if there wasn't (scarcity), we would create more to meet the need. In any discussion of social goods, people use the same fear-based argument, “I don’t want to give up what I have in order for others to have more.” Love says, “Let’s create a solution that serves us both.” 

In The Science of Getting Rich, Wallace Wattles wrote that one’s state of mind influences how one thinks, feels and acts and may even extend to improvements in one’s financial affairs. In 17 short chapters, Wattles explains how to overcome mental barriers and how creation, rather than competition, is the hidden key to attracting wealth.  

Equity and fairness are not the same.

We’ll elaborate, using money as an example of a common social good. Right now, in the United States, we're at the debt ceiling and the president and the speaker of the house are about to have an unproductive, unfruitful (likely) meeting where they both tell each other how wrong the other one is. That's fear-based thinking. Fear energy says, “We can't raise the debt ceiling unless we balance our budget” and the other side counters with, “We always pay our debts no matter what.” Love energy says, “We have more than enough money. We just need to figure out the best way to get it moving. Let’s get creative: We can solve this.” The discussion includes communication of values, assessment of programs and agreement on the best way forward. 

Revisiting Ben’s story about the administrative assistant at Mad Science: There was more than enough lunch break time for everybody. In that microcosm of social goods (the commodity of time), she saw the disparity between the two of them. She perceived that Ben had more lunch break. Fear energy caused her to apply her own lens (rather than seeing the reality) to another person’s situation. Character is a window to the soul; they are the ways to see how fear or love are being expressed.  

Fear versus Fair, Again 

You take an assertive approach to ask your manager for a salary increase.  The boss says something like, “Well, your salary is commensurate with others in your field, so no.” It feels like fairness, but it's actually a fear-based response. Our laws are built on fear, not fairness, and so in a lot of companies you can’t give wage increases outside the standard range for the job because you open yourself to a discrimination suit. It may be a valid reason; it may be the only reason the boss is able to give. It may be wise to a certain extent because it protects the company. What if the employee didn’t like that answer and tells the boss so? If the boss replied, “How dare you ask for a raise, you should know better” - they would be out of line. It would be a mistake if the boss doubled down and snapped to judgment or belittlement of the employee.  

How can I trust you when you don’t keep your word?

Here's an example. One of our employees just sent an email asking for a raise. He attached a document that he got from another company which was a job offer at $5 more per hour than we pay. We believe he has a scarcity mindset. We responded that we would not match the offer he got, because our employment model incorporates character growth as the foundation for assessing wage levels. He argued that he was overdue for a raise, and that the organization had cancelled wage increases on him in the past. He asked, “How can I trust you when you don’t keep your word?”  

We responded with the facts. He did not attend mandatory training (although we did change the dates on some of those). He did not go through orientation as required and must complete it before we schedule the additional training. He exceeded his maximum errors allowed for medication administration and did not improve according to the plan that was set out. We needed to have a meeting to discuss that before any further salary discussions might be held. In addition, he mismanaged a behavioral incident which we needed to debrief. He came to the discussion from fear energy, lobbing his perceptions at us peppered with mistruths, and his tirade stopped just short of an ultimatum. Our thought up to this point was, “Do you really want to have the salary discussion now?” 

We believe employees have the right to be assertive and ask for what they want or need. Acting in love energy, you advocate for yourself, you work to make the best and the most of yourself. When your cup is filled, you have everything you need, and you share the overflow with others.  

That is abundance. That is love.  

For more information, or to request a coaching meeting, please reach out to us.