The immature mind compares itself with what is and what should be, but it is only the immature mind that compares. The mature mind has no comparison, the mature mind has no measure.
I don’ t know if you have ever looked into yourself and watched how you compare yourself with another, saying, ‘He is so beautiful, so intelligent, so clever, so prominent; and I am nobody, I would like to be like him.’ Or, ‘She is so beautiful, has a good figure, has a nice mind, intelligent, bright, better.’ We think and function in this comparative, measuring world.

And if you have ever questioned and observed maybe you have said, ‘No more comparison, no more comparison with anybody, not with the most beautiful actress.’ You know that beauty is not in the actress, beauty is something total, not in the face, in the figure, in the smile, but where there is a quality of total comprehension, the totality of one’s being; when that is what looks, there is beauty.

Do watch it in yourself, please, try it, or rather do it - when you use the word ‘try,’ you know how such a mind is the most deplorable, foolish mind; when it says, ‘I am doing my best, I am trying,’ this indicates a mind that is essentially bourgeois, capable of measuring, which is doing better every day;

so, find out for yourself whether you can live, not theoretically but actually, without comparison, measure, never using the words ‘better’ or ‘more.’ See what happens. It is only such a mature mind that is not wasting energy, only such a mind can live a very simple life, I mean a life of real simplicity, not the so-called simplicity of the man who has one meal, or one loin-cloth - that’s exhibitionism - but the mind that has no measure and is therefore not wasting energy.

Today five million people in the United States between ages 18 and 34 live alone, 10 times more than in 1950. But the largest number of single people are middle-aged; 15 million people between ages 35 and 64 live alone. Those who decide to live alone following a breakup or a divorce could choose to move in with roommates or family. But many of those I interviewed said they chose to live alone because they had found there was nothing worse than living with the wrong person.