Just a Thought: One

The noise within overpowers the calm around and causes disturbance. However, internal silence drowns all the chaos to bring in peace.

To be or not to be

To be or not to be. It’s quite a difficult question faced by a lot of us. It’s that constant conflict between what one is supposed to do and what one wants to do. It’s a constant challenge to one’s individuality. No matter what the so called intelligentsia and the drawing room discussions brag about believing in oneself and following one’s own path, the truth is far away. The reality is quite different. It takes quite a lot of courage to believe in oneself and try and to maintain one’s individuality in a world that is constantly trying to change you, a world that wants to breed conformists rather than thinkers who move you out of the comfort zone.

However, at the risk of sounding like one of the parties above I believe that the power of the youth can enable them to take the path not trodden. It’s in this period of one’s life cycle that one has the liberty to take risks, falter, make mistakes and still not loose too much. Life’s long and there’s enough time to catch up. If one cannot stand by one’s beliefs when the blood is hot and young, then will someone take a stand when there is a family to support? I guess not.

I strongly believe that unless we, the youth give it a serious thought and believe that it’s not that difficult after all, that we can be ourselves without being squashed, the future generation might inherent a very different world. It’s time that the smart, educated youth who are so talented start questioning and not doing things because they are supposed to do it else a job, a placement, a career defining opportunity, a B-school admission might get jeopardized. It’s time they realized that no one in this world has the power to screw your life till the time you believe that they have. It’s time that we stop existing and start living.

Behaviors

Sitting in my room this evening I was in a mood to introspect and one thing that instantly came to my mind was the way people behave in different situations. Living with 178 students with varied backgrounds (academically and geographically) it has been a hell of a ride, trying to understand human behavior. Working in various teams from the committee to the academic groups to the various interest groups in college one has to deal with people of various temperaments and working styles.

One thing that amuses me the most is that though people are expected to behave rationally, they do just the opposite. I think the reason for this that there is an underlying insecurity among people about something or the other which makes them behave in a way in which they are not expected to. However, in doing so they expose that very insecurity of theirs which would otherwise have been concealed had they been a bit rational in their behavior.

There could be a number of reasons for this insecurity like people not being comfortable with themselves, not being able to accept certain shortcomings in themselves, trying to be someone else so that people form a certain perception about them. For example a studious, serious person will try to be humorous just to be a part of a group, or a jovial, happy go lucky person will try to behave like an intellectual so that people don’t think that he’s good for nothing. Now what these people don’t understand is that in trying to be something else the group might not accept them anyway. Also a group of friends requires all sorts of people. It’s got to be a healthy blend of serious, intellectual, jovial, humorous people. Each one brings something to the table and each has his own importance in the group. The moment people can get rid of these insecurities and accept that each individual is different and everyone has some shortcomings, I think they’ll start behaving more rationally.