top of page

By:

Asha Tripathi

14 April 2025 at 1:35:28 pm

Stop Comparing, Start Growing

Success does not grow in comparison; it grows in focus. Over the years, women have made significant strides in every sphere of life. From managing homes to leading organisations, from nurturing families to building successful careers, women have proved that strength and resilience are deeply rooted in their nature. Financial independence has become a significant milestone for many women today, bringing with it confidence, dignity, and the freedom to shape one’s own destiny. However, along...

Stop Comparing, Start Growing

Success does not grow in comparison; it grows in focus. Over the years, women have made significant strides in every sphere of life. From managing homes to leading organisations, from nurturing families to building successful careers, women have proved that strength and resilience are deeply rooted in their nature. Financial independence has become a significant milestone for many women today, bringing with it confidence, dignity, and the freedom to shape one’s own destiny. However, along with growth has come another silent challenge — the tendency to constantly observe, compare, and sometimes even compete with the journeys of others. But a crucial question arises: Is it necessary to track the growth of others in order to grow ourselves? From my personal experience of more than two decades as an entrepreneur, I have realised something very powerful — true growth begins the moment we stop looking sideways and start looking within. A Small Beginning I had a flourishing career of teaching abroad, but when I restarted my career after moving back to India, my beginning was extremely small. My very first assignment was a simple home tuition for a single student, and the amount I earned was meagre. There was nothing glamorous about it. No recognition, no large batches, no big earnings. Just one student and one opportunity. But instead of worrying about how others were doing, how many students they had, or how much they were earning, I made a conscious decision—my only focus would be on improving myself. I focused on teaching better, preparing better, and becoming more disciplined and consistent. And slowly, without even realising it, things began to grow. One student became two, two became a small group, and gradually, over the years, the work expanded beyond what I had initially imagined. Looking back today, I can confidently say that the growth did not happen because I competed with others. It happened because I competed with myself yesterday. Comparison Creates Noise When we keep watching others' journeys too closely, we unknowingly divert our own energy. Comparison creates unnecessary noise in our minds. It brings doubts, insecurities, and sometimes even negativity. Instead of walking our own path with clarity, we start questioning our speed, our direction, and our worth. True success grows through focus, not comparison. Every woman has her own story, her own pace, and her own struggles that others may never see. The path of one person can never be identical to another's. So comparing journeys is like comparing two different rivers flowing towards the same ocean — each with its own route, its own curves, and its own rhythm. As women, we already carry many responsibilities. We balance emotions, relationships, work, and society's expectations. In such a life, the last thing we need is the burden of comparison with one another. Instead, what we truly need is support for each other. When women encourage women, something extraordinary happens. Confidence grows. Opportunities multiply. Strength becomes collective rather than individual. There is enough space in the world for every woman to create her own identity. Each of us can build our own niche without stepping on someone else's path. Choose Encouragement Envy weakens us, but encouragement empowers us. Rather than questioning how someone else is progressing, we can ask a more meaningful question: "How can I grow a little better than I was yesterday?" Lift As You Rise Today, after twenty years of experience, the most valuable lesson I have learned is simple yet profound — focus on your own work with honesty and dedication, and success will quietly follow you. We, women, are capable, resilient, and creative. We do not need to pull each other down or compete in unhealthy ways. Instead, we can lift each other up while building our own dreams. Because when one woman rises, she does not rise alone. She inspires many others to believe that they can rise, too. And perhaps that is the most beautiful form of success. (The writer is a tutor based in Thane. Views personal.)

Trading Lines

India’s trade engagement with America has long been shaped by asymmetry. The United States, while remaining India’s largest export destination, has increasingly become its most erratic negotiating partner. Under Donald Trump, trade has been reduced to a crude calculus of deficits and punishments. Tariffs have been wielded as instruments of political theatre to be imposed and withdrawn at whim.


It is amid this backdrop that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, in his latest speech, cautioned again that India’s trade agreements must be concluded on its own terms and conditions and not in thrall to tariff threats.


Bhagwat’s warning, not his first, comes after both countries issued a joint statement announcing they had reached a framework for an Interim Agreement, and would continue working together towards a more comprehensive Bilateral Trade Agreement. The agreement comes after a season of sustained hostility marked by President Trump’s transactional bullying.


Indian policymakers routinely invoke ‘strategic autonomy’ and ‘Atmanirbharta’ even as they pursue market access abroad. Bhagwat’s remarks sharpen this contradiction. By insisting that India will not sign deals under pressure, he implicitly rejects the logic that coercion can be normalised as negotiation.


Nor is the source of the message incidental. The RSS is not a trade negotiator, but it remains the ideological axis of India’s ruling ecosystem. When its chief speaks in front of industrialists, celebrities and political heavyweights, his words function as a constraint as much as a commentary. Foreign capitals would be mistaken to treat them as decorative nationalism.


Bhagwat’s invocation of India as a vishwaguru rather than an intimidating superpower was more than rhetorical flourish. It was a contrast drawn deliberately against the strident American model of economic statecraft perfected under Trump, which is indifferent to institutional norms. Tariffs, once dismissed by economists as self-harm, have been turned by the US President into instruments of domestic posturing while allies have been treated little better than adversaries. India, Bhagwat suggested, has no intention of mimicking such behaviour or submitting to it.


Modern trade negotiations are rarely conducted among equals. Power differentials are real, and leverage is always exercised. To pretend otherwise is to moralise a process that is fundamentally political. Yet Bhagwat’s formulation leaves little room for concessions that can be portrayed as externally imposed, however economically rational they may be.


His insistence that the RSS does not hold the remote control of the Bharatiya Janata Party serves a dual purpose. Formally, it preserves the fiction of organisational separation. Substantively, it signals that certain ideological red lines on sovereignty, coercion and national dignity exist beyond which the government’s room for manoeuvre shrinks.


The real test lies ahead. If the final Bilateral Trade Agreement reflects mutual accommodation rather than asymmetric pressure, it will vindicate India’s claim to strategic autonomy. If not, the interim deal may stand as the outer limit of what Trump-era trade diplomacy can extract from a country increasingly determined to draw its own trading lines. 


Comments

bottom of page