How many times in the world do we walk around and feel people's eyes on us and make us doubt our own self?
Am I wearing the right clothes?
Am I too short?
Will this shirt make me look thin?
What will people say if I do this that way?
(The space here is too short to include others, but you get the hint!)
It happens to everyone- the little 5-yr old girl whose shoes should be of the precise pink color to match her clothes else her classmates would laugh at her, the lover who changes his/her tastes to accommodate his/her beloved’s choices as she/he threatens to leave, the distinguished celebrity desperate to get into the headlines else he won’t be popular.
The bottom line is opinions matter. My question: Why do they?
Well, the answer is simple- because WE let them.
We let the stares and the whispers affect our inner-self. We doubt our own choices and opinions only because others do not agree with our perceptions. It’s so intense that we end up torturing ourselves in the pursuit of perfection. We want the world to have an opinion of us which is surreal- miles away from the actual truth. We do not want to get “judged”. We don’t want to end up in the bad category. In anyone’s list of “People I Admire”, we want our names to be present with all the glory. It’s a different story that we ourselves do not admire our own being!
Being true to our own self is all that should matter. Screw the world and its opinions, it is me who matters! That should be the motto. We should not owe anyone any sort of explanation as far as the choices we’ve made are concerned. The hesitation to attempt to innovate should not exist just because people ridicule us.
“Change” is inevitable. True. But if the change is degrading your mind and corrupting your thoughts, what’s the use of its existence? Change is beneficial till a limit. After that limit, it becomes a compulsion- a task; a liability. In the process of making sure we are not “judged”, we change continuously and end up lying to our own self. The “people” are out there to judge us. People want us to change as per their convenience and it’s our job to be fair to our own self, respect what we are and stand tall!