Just don't follow others - have some reasoning

I always wanted to write something like this. It is very interesting topic. Read it and I am sure you will come to the same opinion like me. Anyway I am going to say something about common mans life (like you and me). If we look at people in this world, most of them lead similar life style. I mean most of them do the same things in their lives like others. I mention some examples in the next paragraphs.

When we are born, we are told by our parents to go to school. So we start doing first thing in our life just like all others. At least I can understand this concept. I mean we really don't know what to do or we may not have enough wisdom to take decision at that small age. So our parents send us to school. But funny thing is you know why they send you school. Simple they see others doing the same thing. I mean they want you to have good life. Again this good life means just leading some life like some employer. For our parents good life is nothing but the life of some one who has good job. Thats it. So they think that if you have good education you will also have good life like that employer. In India most of the people send their children to school with this intention. No one sends school to gain knowledge and wisdom to face the realities of life one has to face in his future. I don't think people would think about all these things before sending their children to school. Again don't misunderstand my opinion here. I am not blaming anyone. I am just pointing at our mentality of following others. This way I feel nothing happens. Everyone becomes follower but not leaders. But again you can point out one simple thing here. If everyone becomes leader who is follower then? You are right? This is just concept. Even if you don't try to follow, there is no guarantee that you will become a leader. But definitely you will become a success story.

All our life we do the schooling thinking that one day we will get some good jobs. Challenge me if I am wrong. I don't think so. How many of us think differently? Especially Indians don't think differently. We just follow others. We just do things what we are told to. It makes me really crazy. It doesn't mean that I tried to do something different. But definitely I have been thinking about it a lot and trying to change my self not to follow others. I will definitely try my best not to follow. Forgive if it hurts you, but I say that we are all like sheep.

After school all of us think that we should get jobs. Then we name it settling in life. Funny. Who said it is settling in life only if we get jobs. Thats the mind set of ordinary Indian student. Once we get some job, we are really satisfied with that and don't try to do something. I am sure everyone wants to do something great in their minds. But everyone is scared to take risk. Everyone thinks like what happens if something goes wrong. Again it is really funny and crazy to think like that because of one simple reason. We all think like that before we even try those things. That means we don't give a shot at anything. We are just scared to deviated from the generality set by other people, who are also followers again. I guess only few people try this and become greats. For example actors, sports persons, etc, are all leaders in their own profession. They all tried something different from normal people and achieved something in their lives. They created something for themselves for others to talk about it. That is the life.

What we do is we just live our life following others all our lives. Thats it one day before our death lying on the death bead with tears in our eyes and holding all our sons and daughters and their kids and relatives, we think that 'yes I had some life, good way to die'. Sounds like cinema. Right? Believe me that's what most of the people want to do. But somewhere in our mind it comes back. It says that what life I had. You start thinking that did I do what ever I wanted to do in my life. You know the answer. Answer is most of the times no. But ask Sachin Tendulkar. He just studied 10th class. He didn't do any software job. But at the end he is leader. Sadly truth is we are followers. We don't try to achieve our goals giving some stupid reasons. We are scared of outcome even before we try it. Sad life. Right?

Then the ultimate thing comes to my mind. You know what that is. Marriage. Most of us get married just because others do the same thing. We do it because our parents did the same thing. Do we know the reason for it? Come on. What a stupid question sreedhar that is? Who cares about the reason? Just get married and have children just like our parents did. Thats it. Then tell your kids to go to school and study well, get good job, get married, then thats like you settled in your life. Wow. Most stupidest thing in the world if think properly about it. I am not trying to judge you if you did the same thing. What I am saying is we all do these things without thinking anything. We all do these things looking at others. Especially looking at our parents and friends. Looking at other people in the society. Don't try to scold me here for saying the truth. If you are happy about it, thats fine. But if you are honest to yourself, I am sure you also wanted to achieve something great which is not like common person does. I always feel like that even though I am also just following others.

Till now I just followed others in my life. But not anymore. I definitely don't want to follow others anymore in my life. I want to do something which gives me happy, even if it doesn't give me money. Sometimes the good thing is if you want to do something different form others, you will end up being famous and money, even if you don't want to have those things. Thats the power of being different and not following others. Again it doesn't mean that you can do bad things not following others as most of the people don't do bad things. It has to be some example to others. What I am saying is you don't want to be there in others. You won't be there in others to look at the example if you try to be different.

Recently when I was talking one of my cousin who was getting married. Funnily he said one work would be finished if he got married. I am not trying to ridicule him here. But it made me feel really surprised. Is marriage some kind of work? Definitely not. Don't get married just because you are single and not able to bear the physical needs. Try to find reasoning which makes you happy, which makes you why you are getting married. Most of the people think that they get used to that person once they are married to each other. That means you just didn't give a thought about anything except your needs and you tried to follow others by marrying someone like others. This way both of them are followers and try to teach the same thing to their kids. Please don't do it. My some other cousin gave another reason. He said his parents responsibility would be over if he got married. What reason is that? So you want to get married just because of that. Come on. Try to find something more than that. Otherwise you will just become puppet in some game called life. Try to become a king, but not pawn or soldier.

Some time back I was talking to one of my childhood friends. We were talking about cars. By the way she has two daughters. I asked her how many cars they have. She said two and I said in future they might need two more for her daughters. Then she said something very common what we all heard in our lives. It seems she told her daughters to study well, get good jobs, then they can buy very good cars just like her and her husband. Immediately I gave her one advice. When they are in a position to afford something why don't they send their kids to some tennis school or something different like other Americans. I told her to show them some tennis matches, then if they like it, they will definitely ask to join them for training even if you don't tell them anything. Thats how it should be.

I know one thing for sure. I still remember one thing happened in my family long time back. One of my cousin aged 7 years started dancing to some song in front of lot of people. Right away my aunt felt embarrassed for that and told him to stop all that. I felt so bad for that and told her that was not the way she should tell her kid. I felt she should have encouraged him. Who knows? One day he can become someone like Michael Jackson or Prabhu Deva. Parents always try to stop their kids doing something different thinking that they would fail or it would embarrass them in front of other people. Thats wrong. Don't try to put your feelings on your kids. I understand that they are your kids. But at the same time you need to understand that they have their own personalities and it all depends on what they teach them when they are kids. If you try to make them calm and obedient, that is good. But not at the cost of their enthusiasm to do different things. Encourage them. They just need encouragement. Even if you can't give him financial support, it really doesn't matter. He will find something on his own with your encouragement. But please don't tell them the same things your parents told you just because of your feeling that you had some great life. Don't put him down whenever he tries to do something great with his life just because it is different from others.

I am not saying all these things wrong. But it might make you happy for a moment. But it doesn't give you ultimate happiness. If you can do something different with your life unlike most of the people in this world, at the end of your life you feel wow I did something in my life and gave an example to others. I am sure you definitely don't want to be part of those others. I definitely don't.

Lot of people say that what else we could do apart from getting married and having children. Most of the people think that everyone should do these two like all others. No. You don't have to if you don't feel it. You don't have to unless there is something that makes you happy. Unless you find some good reasoning. The other thing is lot of people will have kids thinking that their lineage would exist after his death. That is the reason you find for having kids. Bullshit. Most of the men feel proud when their wives give birth to his children. You know why? He thinks that he has proved himself to be a man by making his wife pregnant and giving birth to child. What a selfish reason. Even pigs do that. Every creature on this earth does the same thing. Don't be proud because of wrong reasons. I think you just did your duty and created one more creature on this earth. But you should feel proud when your teachings helped your kid achieve great success in his life. But definitely not for proving your manliness. Some people think that their kids are their blood. Who cares about your blood? Does it really matter if there is no proof to your blood. I guess definitely not. There are so many people living in this world, it really doesn't matter even if you don't have kids and your family name or lineage stops with you. If you think honestly it really doesn't hurt not to have your own kids. It really doesn't hurt not to have kids with your family name. You can always adopt children. I mean there are so many orphans in this world. Think about them. If you can adopt at least two orphans and give them life, then you did something different from others. At the same time make sure that you teach them something special and make them not to follow others.

Anyway I don't mean to say that all those things are wrong. I don't mean to say that you did bad if you did those things I mentioned above. But I don't feel bad to say that you are among the sheep if you don't have enough reasonings for what you are doing right now in your life. Hey don't feel angry and irritated because of this. Do you want to feel better? Then read this. I am also someone among these sheep. But what I am doing is at least thinking about it and trying to change myself. I hope you also do the same thing. I hope you find good reason to do everything and hope you try not to follow others and create something for yourself which can be shown as an example to others. I will try for sure. But again who knows what happens. Whatever happens I guess it really doesn't matter as I can at least feel that I gave a try. That feeling is definitely worth of trying something different.

cheers,
Sreedhar.