Sorry to myself

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.