Monday, July 9, 2012

Affirmation

I have never been a fan of conventional wisdom, I don’t do things because I am supposed to them or because my family/my boss/society tells me to and I don’t toe the line because everybody else is doing it and I don’t want to be left behind. Which is why I still don’t have a smartphone (as tempting as the What’s App application is).

But herd mentality is contagious and it hits you hard at a very early age, and by the time you are in your twenties, it’s so ingrained that you don’t even recognize it anymore: you are almost programmed to be a product of the assembly line, and like just another piece of luggage you rotate around the conveyor belt in an airport.

At an age where you should be enjoying your childhood, experimenting with your choices and making mistakes, our education system makes you a slave to unpalatably heavy text books devised to program you for entrance exams rather than teaching you the basic concepts…

At an age where you should be traveling around the world on a shoestring budget, weighing your options and working your way through shifts at McDonalds and pizza joints to pay for parties, our respected universities ‘prepare’ you for the rat race, while our families mollycoddle you for a ‘future’ a.k.a another set of entrance exams…

At an age where you should be allowed to remain confused about career opportunities, trying on different roles, meeting different people and figuring out what suits you best, our big bad corporate world tries to suck out the last bit of individuality out of you, reducing you to just another programmer/manager/analyst…

At an age where you should be relishing your freedom, falling in love with the wrong people, getting your heart broken over and over again till you finally meet the right person, our society judges you for being single…

At an age where you should be encouraged to be young, you are constantly pushed into being “one of them”, because, god forbid, if you don’t become an engineer/MBA, you won’t have the latest model of the iPhone, you won’t be employed with the MNC where ABC got placed and you won’t get married to XYZ and give birth to cute, fair, tall, smart kids…

At an age, where I am just discovering myself, the world takes over me

8 comments:

xibi said...

So true !!! Story of my life :-)

the.orchestra.of.life said...

I still use my 8 year old Nokia 6100 :|

Makk said...

are you in for a hiking trip to probably Kedarnath?

survivingbrain said...

Dont let the world take over you !
its not worth it!

Sad part of it, is we regret NOT doing many things in life, just because we tursted our family/friends/the man who works with GOD/the other asshole who you met at the wrong place/and everyone else over your own heart.

Rg said...

Its a superb post..each word is true..i felt so connected with every line..kudos to u..:) :)

Anonymous said...

connect to this. i constantly feel, that i need to explore myslef more. do more. not settle for good-enough but the best.
but not 'settling down' leaving the 'security net' to explore is so tough. and takes so much time!

Nefertiti said...

@xibi
i guess it's the story of everybody's life...

@the.orchestra.of.life
wow! unfortunately, I can't claim the same since I keep losing my phone,though I stick to the same basic model each time

@makk
huh! that's totally out of context! anyway, that seems a little far fetched right now, since I am just back from a long vacation, but thank you!

@survivingbrain
well, it's a tough choice, and at times, you aren't even fully aware of the decisions you make in the moment...

@r!chss
thanks! I guess most people of our generation can connect with it at some level...

Makk said...

Well, I am out of context person tht way.