I definitely don’t have any idea about human psyche. I don’t even consider myself intellectual enough to study or understand it. In fact, you can say it is like ROCKET SCIENCE for me. But, I definitely notice that we stop being ourselves at the time when it is most required. For instance, I sometimes find myself in a situation like “I want to do it just because all are doing it”. But, of late I realized that our true identity and values should be important over what others do and think. Is it really worth giving ourselves up? Your individuality is at stake. We have reached a point where we have to decide what to choose. Either we go on with the world and live life according to them , or take some initiative and look at life with a fresh perspective. I don’t mean to say that we should be adamant or stubborn. But, going out of the way and changing your ideologies for someone is just not worth it.
I just recollected an incident at my Group Discussion during my MBA entrance. I was asked who my role model was, to which I quickly replied that it was my father. The interviewer was shocked (and impressed) with the answer as most of them had names some political leaders like Dr. Kalam. How can you make a person your role model without even meeting him? I don’t mean to say that anything is wrong with this, but it seemed a bit over the top for me. My interviewer got impressed with me and gave me a decent score there. So, it is usually beneficial to be yourself. Moreover, people who expect you to live by their ideals are not your actual friends. They are with you because you live according to their convenience. Once they feel that you are snatching away their comfort zone, you won’t even realize and you will be isolated again.
We need to be firm on our grounds and our beliefs to make an impact in this world. Finally, everything is going to leave us and it is just our ideologies which will have a permanent niche carved in our life. Living our life according to others will make us just another hypocrite. Being ourselves would help us find our real friends, those who would accept us the way we are, and those who would stand by us through thick and thin. So I feel that being ourselves and being surrounded by a few good people seems to be a safer bet than being something else and surrounded by too many hypocrites.
Today’s youth is wise enough to understand and implement this. Even if one person just starts thinking about himself after reading this article, I would consider myself victorious.
The writer is a Features correspondent of Youth Ki Awaaz.