We lead our lives constantly surrounded by a huge crowd.
It’s a heterogenous mix of strangers, acquaintances, colleagues, superiors and
the best subset…close friends and family. Different people have different ways
of dealing with this crowd….some revel in it, some are indifferent to it, some
are scared by it and some lose themselves in it…but no one can ever escape it. There is hardly ever a moment when you are truly alone….and most of the time,
we take for granted that someone or the other is observing us. It’s a subtle
thing, not something we realize on a day to day basis, but somewhere
sub-consciously we always take this into account when we make our decisions.
Whether it is what we wear, how we laugh or what we talk about, the reaction
that these actions would evoke from this ever-present crowd is always taken
into account..…and human as we all are, we would always want that reaction to
be good. But what if reaction starts dictating your action….you start doing
things that others would approve of, that would be appreciated by most if not
all. And I don’t just mean this for people who are in the limelight….like movie
stars whose every move is under scrutiny. It happens to us every day….noticing
people who wear odd, sometimes rumpled clothes…a weird hairstyle….someone
mouthing the words to the song they’re listening to on their mp3 player to
someone who happens to laugh so loudly that the whole room would hear them. We
pass out this silent judgement just as often as we receive it…..and its natural
for everyone to try and make it favourable, its almost an act of self-defense.
But somewhere along this path of trying to please others, we end up letting
ourselves go.
Sometimes I find myself wondering if my likes and dislikes are
really my own. How often do I do something coz I want to, irrespective of
whether or not I have company?? How often have I given something up because it
was an impractical or risky thing to do? As much as this is a fear of the
unknown, for me, it is a fear of being alone.A fear of losing this approval and
with it the people who I have so come to depend on. For sure, there would be
some of them who would be there for me no matter what….but would you really have the
guts to put them to the test? And it wouldn’t be easy to deal with the opinions
and judgements of the people you lose in the process either. This fear, this
play-it safe attitude makes you lose more
than you gain. People come and go in your life, each time leaving you to
readjust and maybe even redefine yourself to someone new.
Scary though it might be, taking on a search for your true
self is the best thing any of us could ever do. Its something I’m still building
up the courage to do. Hopefully one day, I’ll be able to define myself in words
of my own, not those borrowed from others’ opinion of me. And for all the times
I gave up a part of me for the sake of others….I am sorry to myself.
