Be yourself
Perfect
“Pachelbel Kanon”, rainy weather, being down with flu, an eventful week, and unability to attend school: perfect conditions for once in a while solace seeking — can there be any better days?
It’s useful to periodically reflect on what had happened in life, and then decide if it was well spent and if otherwise, why and what should have been done instead so as to learn a lesson and resolve not to repeat the same ol’ mistakes again for once bitten twice shy.
And I’ve learnt to be kind and share my findings.
Doing the right things? Yea right.
Seems like I have a knack for doing the right things which I sometimes find hard to explain: take web standards and you might get the idea. Over time it’s becoming apparent that the only right things to do are only as right as when they are relative to something wrong or should I say, less right. And what kind of rights are we really talking about? Morally or politically or socially or some random kind I haven’t even heard of?
I bet we can agree that taking away the rights of any living thing to live(eg: murder) is definitely wrong. But say, your pet dog suffers an incurable disease and it will suffer endlessly till the day it can finally rest. The vet says that putting it to sleep will make it feel better for obvious reasons.
What do we do?
- Do we assume that it wants to be put to sleep so that it won’t suffer anymore, because at the end of it all, it will still, afterall, die?
- Or do we assume that it doesn’t want to die because any dying creature would love to spend the remaining times with their loved ones and dogs are no exception?
I bet you my life even the pet itself can’t decide. (And you can’t take my life away unless you can somehow make a (real) dog says that it actually can decide and not in your dream!)
If we evaluate the choices, we can safely say that from anyone’s point of view, they are both wrong not right appropriate.. The negative remarks with either decisions respectively :
- Aww, what a mean owner to put his pet to sleep once it’s sick because it’s became a burden and no longer cute.
- Oh my god. Poor dog! Can’t the owner just give it a break already and put it to sleep for Christ’s sake?
Now that’s probably why I’ve never considered a pet, yet.
Controversy
Truth is, this only happens because there’re (at least) 2 sides to every fiction while fact has only one. And fiction is the brainchild of judgemental people who have nothing better to do (that is me). (I’ve a related post a few days back.)
If we could do with less of such people, we would be able to do things that we want to our way. But more often than not, human are very affected by judgements and god knows why. (Let’s not talk about being judged morally(oh, this again) in this case.)
We’re all too afraid of being controversial. We want to be in line with the mainstream because that’s the norm and should I go against the norm, the sky will fall upon me and I’ll end up being just a face in everyone’s memory! But seriously, how do we even leave a deep impression in others if we’re just, like everyone else?
And why the fear, we ask. I suspect it’s because being different could put you in exile. You see, we like to see things happen in our favor, or else we would shun them. If you play nice, I’ll be your friend, or else don’t even think of coming near me.
We usually don’t oppose others’ sayings too. We try to agree when we can, or even when we can’t. Agreeing makes you an easy person to get along with. You get the drift. It’s inside everyone of us to want to be accepted by every other person so we try to be the same in hopes of being accepted because any slight difference will make us look like an outcast. No good.
But it’s fine with me, because I want to be different, not for the sake of being so but more because I want to be me. If there’s any chances that I will be accepted as a friend, or as a person, I will want to be identified as being myself. Because I’m unique, just like everyone else is. What an irony.
See the way I’m trying to preach people to be controversial — I’m trying to in line with the not-so-mainstream too because a small part of everyone else is trying to be controversial too and that’s when implications happen. How do we even be totally different? *sighs*
Ladies, start by not dressing like everyone else! Stop following fashion trends! Start making the others your followers! For a start, go bra-less from today onwards! Don’t be bothered by the oogling and the repetitive remarks by the others. Look at that slut, what is she thinking of not wearing a bra?
Because trust me, they’re only sprouting nonsense — tell me which guy doesn’t want to see a lady go bra-less.
Hypocrites
And these are the hypocrites we should ignore.
- Situation 1 (and the only one):
-
A not-so-scantily-dressed-but-enough-to-reveal-more-than-what-is-intended pretty lady with a somewhat good figure sits on a corner seat, beside the entrance door of the cabin in a train. She is wearing low-cut shirts that reveals much of her cleavage, and a skirt so short I’ll go without one if I were her.
In a situation like that, that leaves us men no choice but to at least steal a glance once in a while at this beautiful thing. We may criticise or judge this lady by saying how she’s dressed this way, how slutty she may look like, or blah. But just imagine looking down at her when you’re standing at the entrance, or across while sitting opposite her. No one really knows why looking at such sight brings excitement but as the saying goes,
If there’s nothing to lose, why not?
— I couldn’t agree more. Bahh, I’m just cheap and desperate.But that’s beside the point! The lady soon realises that she’s drawing attentions to her precious. And for no known reasons, she starts to feel weird. If you may argue that of course someone will feel weird being stared at, then let me enlighten you :
Don’t dress that way! Deploy some common sense please.
And after the episode, once she gets off the train and meets up with whosoever, she’ll start complaining about these perverts in the train to whosoever; things like
Damn those lifeless perverts who have nothing to do and keep staring at me! Go get a hooker or a life!
or something to that effect, more or less.Stop acting holier than thou already if you want to dress in something I described because it’s childish — you dress like that to look pretty, and when people are attracted to you visually, you start whining. You should get a life instead.
Don’t want to be looked at? Don’t feed them the eye-candy.
Now we’re so confused, who is the hypocrite? The guy who termed her as slutty but still looked nevertheless. Or the lady who wished to gain attention but blamed the guys who gave her what she needed when she had them.
It’s the latter. Go figure.
There’re too many hypocrites who don’t do what they preach and it’s pissing everyone else off. Start to stick to your words. If you like to see such things, then go ahead and admit it. I’ll start the ball rolling: I love such stuffs.
See, it’s not that difficult anyway.
Forgive and forget
Oh fine. People make mistakes, they always do. And we should always be forgiving enough. How can we expect others to forgive us when we make mistakes when we can’t even give them a chance to be forgiven?
And beside, forgiving others is being lenient to ourselves as we liberate ourselves from having to carry the burden of remembering the misdeeds s/he has done. Seek an easier life: Start forgiving and forgetting already. Everyone deserve chances because we’re all human and the saying goes, To err is human
. And there ought to be some sense in it.
If one day you feel like forgiving is done one too many times already, then forget it altogether. Yes, this is the true hidden essense of the “Forgive and Forget” spirit: Forgive till you can’t do so anymore, then forget it.
Regrets
So, you’re afraid that you may regret if you just forget it, and let go. Fret not my young padawan, regret is not what should be. What we did or didn’t do mould the us today. There’s no time to regret what should have been done or not be done at all, because the time we spent living in the past is inversely proportionate to the time we can spend in future — the more spent in the last equates less time for the future.
So remember, whatever that is in the past is a lesson, don’t forget them and don’t repeat them but never dwell on them because they had happened. Start making the unhappened happen already. Start from today.
Procrastination
But, today? Isn’t that too early? I have a lot of tomorrows to start work with, so can I just spend today reminiscing instead, please?
Congratulation, you’ve just contracted disease Procrastination. As defined by the dictionary, it means deferment or putting-off of an action or task, usually by focusing on some other distraction.
Just bear in mind, procrastination is like masturbation — at first it feels good, but in the end you’re only fucking yourself.
And this is a very difficult disease to cure because the moment we want to do anything about it, we’ll put it off till a later date.
Fine, I’ll start changing this bad habit tomorrow!
But chances are tomorrow will be put off to tomorrow’s tomorrow, and so on. Well, I’m a great procrastinator so I can’t really tell you any solution till I’ve found any. (Stay tuned)
Contradiction
As we can see under the section “Doing the right things?”, “Controversy”, “Hypocrites” and probably all other aspects of life that I didn’t even mention, we are leading a very contradictory life. Whatever we do, has an equal and opposite reaction and this is normal. What we can’t do is to please everyone to accept our thinking, but we can do is to be really confident of ourselves and ignore what they might think.
This takes alot of confidence and time. And when it finally happens, you’re being yourself and not following what’s expected to be of you.
Conclusion
And be yourself is what you really should be. Don’t be bothered by how others might think of you as long as you’re doing something you deem is right. If you think that being in the mainstream is more important than being yourself, then by all means go ahead. I won’t tell you how to live, but I can tell you how I think I want meself to live and maybe you can take a pointer or two.
Just ask yourself who are you living your life for. For yourself or for someone else? If it’s the former, I’ll congratulate you for you have found the meaning of life. And for the latter, it takes time, and it’s perfectly fine to be so.
As discussed in “Doing the right thing”, one can never be too wrong, nor too right thanks to relativity issue. So take your chance, play your way through. But please play it right for there’s set of rules called The Law that may nab you if you’ve played foul.
Finally, I’ve reflected upon my deeds and it’s time to move on in life. But not without thanking the people involved in my learning experiences first:
Thank you, whomever it may concern.
Have a good day ahead of you, souls. Hope you’ve picked up a thing or two from what I have to say.