Zero-Sum Siblings

Once I was talking to my cousin, I asked about another cousin whereabouts and I got reply

“I am the topper, why should I go behind him”. I couldn’t understand the answer, how come qualification became a measure between brothers?

According to Indian history around 7000 years ago, at the time of Ramayana, when Rama had to get down from his throne and pursue vanavasa, other 3 brothers (including 2 half-brothers) never took his place until he is back. Additionally, one of his brother Lakshmana accompanied rama to forest. Bharata who is eligible to replace rama never sat on throne, and cursed his mother kaikeyi for her greed. Last brother Shatrugna went ahead of others and tried to kill Kaikeyi's maid Manthara who is the root cause.

Moving to 3000 – 5000 years back from now, at the time of Mahabharata Pandavas and Kauravas are the cousins who fought for their kingdoms. But at least 5 Pandavas and 100 Kauravas (Except One) are together within themselves in this fight. As a result of the war both sides got destroyed in it.

It moved from cousins to own siblings, these days own siblings kept values and relations beside and compete for their properties. Greed got replaced at bonding, Especially in financial matters, siblings are seen as competitors rather than strengths.

So the point is, what we are missing to teach kids? As a parent where is the seed for this Greed, competition, and rivalry?

The initial implantation starts in a family at dining table, when food is divided between siblings, then it moves to their marks and studies. Often parents compare each of their kids with their siblings or cousins on ranks or marks in their studies which is the first seed planted, where kids start to see his generation as competitors. Comparison start from ranks to university they study, job they get, salary they earn, investments they make, and properties they possess and from then it moves to next generation and it continues to grow. Comparison became a competition, and competition became rivalry.

In the whole process, are we not training kids towards Zero-sum thinking?

We are possessed with a psychology of “Your loss is my gain, My loss is your gain” even between own brother and sister, and that’s what were pushed further to get mastered generation by generation with this mindset. This how human evolution happened, and this greed mindset started from food, studies to all desired things in life such as wealth, status, power, love.

The root cause of this mindset is the belief of limited resources and limited goods according to Anthropology. Socially members of the middle class tend to be more concerned about the wealth of the upper class than the poverty of the lower class. Envy is more powerful than guilt, which became the driving force to ignore the measure of relations and empathy between relatives. So anyone between a person and his greed became a rival.

When we relate Zero sum mindset in a man’s life, all the money, properties, and movable or immovable assets acquired are either lost or transferred. So its better to play a Positive sum game where the resources increases no matter a person win or loose. In Positive sum, logically total gains and losses become greater than Zero when desires and the needs of all concerned parties are satisfied. And it can occur when there is distributive bargaining considering the interests of each person. In a nutshell if a person can get the empathy of others success or failure can directly or indirectly influence his own success can solve the whole mind problem of greed.

So to conclude have the right mindset and measures, the measure between two people and their relation is intensity of love. By default kids are manufactured with giving mindset, as a parent stop replacing it with Zero sum mindset and wrong measures. Make it clear that failure in a family is a family failure, it dents the family as a whole. Teach kids to identify each one strengths and weaknesses, compensate one’s weakness with another’s strength, focus on equity rather equality and grow together, make them understand growing together gives exponential result than growing alone.

Thanks,

Prashant Penumatsa