Catch-22 & the bad examples bubble
Leon Festinger in his groundbreaking theory of 1954 has first documented the idea of social comparison. There is no recorded evidence of when humans or more accurately Homo Sapiens, as the book ‘Sapiens’ would press upon us to refer ourselves, have first started to develop this cognitive ability. But throughout the course of history, it segregated several generations of our species into few fundamental brackets to filter the best from the rest. Wealth, intelligence, power, desirability, strength, compassion, humor, mental will and creativity are just a few of those primary definer attributes. People have been competing to shine and outlast each other in their fundamental brackets and quite often, in more than a single bracket. More than helping our civilization excel, this thirst has paralyzed our true capabilities as we no longer recognize ourselves with what we are naturally being gifted with. Our fear of losing the race we did not choose is messing with our ability to follow our heart. Materialism and comparison is taking over the world in the disguise of inspiration. Scores of parents around the world make wrong choices for their children time and again thinking of a handful people who have become ridiculously successful in a particular field because of their true passion in that domain. How the world’s going to think of us is a question we wake up with every morning and that decides every decision we make for ourselves. These are all the bad examples that have traversed generations and are consistently magnifying themselves. But when this bubble finally erupts, it throws our whole civilization’s yoke off. An unhappy job or an education of no true interest is still fine for many of us because we are too scared of the judgements society, parents and friends have to make for us and our previous generations’ obsession with those corporate long ties. We can write, we can sing and we can paint but we won’t. A 2015 bollywood flick named ‘Tamasha’ has rightly captured it. It is unfortunate that so many apprehensions come to the fore while we try to breach past the comfort zone fence when our true comfort and freedom is outside of it and we know it. Why always follow the line like a flock of sheep? People in those success stories you were taught never did it. Pierce through the wilderness, uncertainty and no-man’s land and on the other side of that is your true success.
Steve Jobs has put it so nicely in his 2005 Stanford commencement speech. When he said, ‘Our time here is limited. Don’t waste it living someone else’s life’, we couldn’t agree more.
May god bless you.
