He looked into my eyes with great concern and said, "Why do you think you are different? Just be Normal like everybody else and gel in."
For a second it seemed like a decent advice that in my 20 years of ups and downs, never occurred to me apparently. I have to be honest and confess, I've always felt a lack of belonging and felt like I need to be somewhere else but the place that I was in. I've always felt when I was talking, I was heard but never truly understood. Maybe I was talking a different language or talking of a different world. Maybe I was just insane, suffered a genetic mutation or was just different. "Just be like everybody else".
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| Should I be ME or just like the rest be? |
Maybe I should start dressing exactly like my friends and stop bothering about gender equality. Maybe I should straighten my hair and stop talking about improving the education system of my country. Maybe I should just get a masters degree(In the very education system I opine as incapable!) instead of wanting to travel the world to see its true beauty. Yes! Maybe I should give up all my dreams, all my passions, all my heart's desires just so that all the people around me will look at me and say, "she is normal, she is just like the rest of us."
We live in a society where people of beauty, wealth and power are worshiped (Need I state the countless examples of who our society wrongfully appreciates?). We have a set of behaivoural guidelines and habits that we deem as NORMAL. The things we wear, the way we speak, the places that we visit , the people that we date or even the dreams we Dare to Dream. They all have to be a certain way that the majority doesn't frown upon.
But what if I want to break away from that NORMAL. What if I want to set out on a path that has not been tread on by the generations before me. I am scared and am certainly unsure of what lies ahead. But do I let these fears stop me? I am alone in trying to be that someone that the society says is DIFFERENT. Do I step back and live a life that I dread, just because people on the street don't recognize me for who I am?
Why is it that we have a fear something new. We let that fear stop us from freeing our souls to the unknown. If I dare to say I want to take two years off from my education, to travel this beautiful world and learn about the planet I belong to, all I hear are gasps of utter fright and certain cases of disappointment (Sorry my main aim in life is not the own a yellow Ferrari and a bungalow on the palm islands in Dubai!)
Our obsession with complying with this standard of NORMAL, makes us so prejudiced and biased. If a man chooses to love a man instead of a woman like the rest of us, why do we say he is committing a sin? If a woman is healthier than most of us by about 80 Kilos, then why do the words 'fat' and 'ugly' automatically enter into our minds? If a man wears torn clothes and earns less than most of us, why do we assume he is worthless and achieved nothing mentionable at all?
We judge them so instantly and recklessly, that it is truly unfortunate. We spend our whole lives learning that true beauty of a person lies on the inside, yet all we care about is the outside. All the wonderful people we stop ourselves from knowing, just because we don't agree with what and who they are! All the wonderful things we stop ourselves from becoming, just because others might not agree with what and who we are!
My very concerned friend, was obviously concerned that I felt alone and isolated. But do I change myself just so that I am accepted? Do I lose everything that truly makes me ME, just so that I am identified with pretty words?
Just when I had decided I am going to be all alone in my fight to re-define NORMAL, I had an epiphany (I had to use this word, because I just love the way it sounds!). I am not alone at all! Just a few days later another good friend of mine said "whatever you are is your state of NORMAL, not what others say it needs to be". No need to lose myself in the crowd then? A week later I met a room full of people with more zeal than me to give up on NORMAL dreams of wealth and power, in order to work for the community. No need to give up on my dreams then?
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
~ Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
Don't start being normal. The world needs people like you. Will xx
ReplyDelete:) Thaaaaaaaaaaaaanks!!!
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