CONFORMING VS INDIVIDUALITY?

We have many moments that each stand out, adding colours to the life that is somewhat between black and white.

It sounds perplexingly obvious right? That of course life is a mantra of different moments, but here’s the catch; each moment is a culmination of societal standards and unrefined thinking. A bag of many two cents, we cannot even remember most of these moments. We cannot relate anymore to how each of them was a defining moment, or at least was a defining moment at the time that they happened, hence we struggle to even understand what we’ve spent many years doing if not celebrating our victories.

Deciding

The answer is, we’ve spent many years deciding how right or how wrong it is to hold onto each moment, because of everything and everyone but ourselves. I’m not saying this is a matter of a lack of individuality, but Psychology suggests that the influence of society in one’s life takes away a sense of individuality. How many opportunities that resonated with everything you desire to attain have you passed, because they did not align with family, friends and even cultural approval? Are we really being ‘accommodating’ or it’s just so much easier to be like everyone else than it is to stand out? There are many questions when it comes to individuality versus conforming. There is also very a thin line between these very different concepts that we shy away from, that being, one is not the other and yet one plays a role in shaping the other. Can one exist without the other?

Intriguing

It is both intriguing and a disgrace that a simple concept can be so complex and create so much controversy and thirst for understanding. We are trying to understand ourselves and create an atmosphere of self-love by promoting the constant need of what we call ‘self-love’, and this is just an example of how society has created this to promote individuality. Everyone is telling everyone to be an individual by doing what everything ‘thinks is right’. Bingo.  Conforming or just individuality? When you come to think of it, the narrative that people should push for something suggests that they do not have it.

You are telling everyone to love themselves because you don’t think they do, and you think you should take a break and focus on ‘self-love’ and ‘the person you’re becoming’ because you feel you don’t possess both. This is the problem, while society pushes an agenda and/or universal thinking, they are teaching you individuality by conforming to the notion that as a society everyone lacks that aspect and they should have it. While this could be good to a certain extent, it’s just one way to teach everyone to be the same. As a result, we are unhappy we’ve stopped ourselves from indulging in fine print, in every small victory we have added a dash of guilt because ‘how dare we bask in our glory at the inconvenience of one person’s envy’ and ‘how dare we think different from the rest of the world’?

We are trading everything we have righteously worked hard for, for the comfortability of society. Basically, we have all, more or less, given ourselves the responsibility to fit into boxes society continually puts us in and uses to define us. Sacrificing our integrity for morals decided for us. This is debatable; do they exist because we are incapable of living lives set by our own bounds? Or we really aren’t individuals, we are just here and there to be in accordance with whatever flows? I think this is both dangerous and careless, to just go with the flow, unsure where the flow takes you when you only have one chance to living, gambling seizes to be a card placed on the table. One mistake?

Find

You’ll be trying to find yourself forever in between pages telling the rest of the world ‘how to be a billionaire in one month’ or ‘six things successful do’, and understand this, there’s a thousand other people reading the same book because they don’t think they have it in themselves to be both the ‘successful’ and a ‘billionaire’ by being themselves so they are sitting somewhere taking word for word what one writer promised will get them there. Guess what? By the time you’re done reading that book you are guaranteed to be copy 802 of the one person because you conformed. To be frank, I hope you are conscious from this moment of whether you are conforming or not and celebrate every win that you encounter without the fear it’s not good enough in society standards. Bask in the rewards of your labour and don’t allow anyone to determine the weight of your success. Live according to your standards.

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