The original
What happened to the one inside you?
I looked at my watch, It’s 10.30 in the night. I was returning home after an arduous day at work. I started on my bike. As I drove, cool breeze, crescent moon hanging from the sky, street lights brighter than the moon and less traffic on otherwise congested road made me feel good. I was enjoying the ride until I saw the green on the traffic signal from a distance, I accelerated, the light turned yellow and before I could get to the newly drawn white “STOP” line, its red. Though I hated to stop, I had to hit the brakes and be right behind the line till the light goes green. Few seconds later, two more bikes and a car joined me. As the light remained red, more vehicles joined the wait, including a truck.
Everyone’s waiting for the light to go green, but I think the timer was set for long duration as it’s one of the busiest junctions during the day. It was calm, except for the idling sounds of the engines. I was flanked by four bikes on the left and a car on the right. The truck was right behind me. Seconds seemed like minutes, the wait was a little frustrating at that time of the day, but I don’t want to break the rules. The one to my left, driving Yamaha, throttled his engine once, closed the clutch, changed the gear and zoomed past the big STOP line. I looked at the light, it was still red. He just couldn’t wait any longer. Then, two more bikers looked around to see if anyone else is ready to go and finally followed the Yamaha, then the car on my right slowly inched forward and drove into the curvy road.
One by one, everyone started to jump the signal. For a moment, I thought of following them, but I remained unmoved. The truck behind me started honking. The light is still red, I said to myself, “I am not moving anywhere”. Though I am doing the right thing, there’s a strange feeling inside me that started compelling me to leave, a feeling that asked me to follow everyone else. As every second passed, I felt uneasy for staying there, I felt alone and stupid. The truck reversed a bit, overtook me from the right and went away. From then, no one even cared to stop. I was all alone in the middle of road like an outcast while everyone else just drove past me from either sides. What did I do?
The strange feeling of not being in the majority group in that situation forced me to finally give up waiting for the green signal. I changed the gear and moved as every else did. This is not the first time that I succumbed to the influence of the majority group and I know that I am not the only one.
In every aspect of life, most of the times, we validate with people around us. Did you notice that the first thing we do when someone asks for a donation is to see how much others have donated and then donate accordingly ? That’s human tendency. This tendency has its own impact on the way we live. In simple words, It lets you to live in either of these two contrary ways, Outside-in and Inside-out.
When I jumped the signal, I lived from the outside to inside, I let the outside world control my decisions even when I am capable of doing what is right. I couldn’t stand up to the pressure that everyone else has created on me, I just changed my rules to align with theirs. Just think about it, Have you ever made a decision, small or big, just to align with the outside world? may be. Have you done something under the sheer pressure of the society? may be. Right from using a fork in a restaurant to the course we studied in college is being influenced by the outside world. Clothes we wear, hobbies we create, movies we watch and the mobile we use, are all influenced by the small surrounding we live in. But, do we need to validate so much with the society?
Its unfortunate that this comes naturally to us. We love to be accepted and liked. The moment we realize that we are not liked or accepted, we change our behavior, principles and if necessary, everything, to be liked again. Today, social media has taken this to a new level. Our emotions, ideas, memories are all turned into objects that can be liked or disliked by everyone we know. We are not the one we love to be and do what we love to do, for that matter, we don’t even try to find how we want to be and what we want to do. As we grow up, we just look around and do what everyone else does, Follow. The original inner self is long gone and what now remains is a collection of our plastic personalities that we created to be accepted and loved.
Everyday, the original person inside us is diminishing under the pressure of our plastic outside personality that we create to align with the world for all the wrong reasons. Give the original a chance to live and don’t outcast the original
How to be original then? Live Inside-out, from inside to outside. Everything you do should be controlled from inside, your inner self. Your goals should influence your actions. Your morals and attitude should determine your behavior. Your character should shape your real personality.Do what you love to do irrespective of what the world does, even by taking one step at a time. Do what is right, not what is easy. Live your life and not that of the society.
Live inside out, Be yourself, Be original
If you liked the story and want to share your perspective, feel free to comment. The author will reply.
Like the author — NowInspireMe
Follow the Author on twitter — Follow — Raju Namburi
