The Ever Clueless:
Right and the Wrong (only Left)
How many times have you hesitated
to take that life changing decision? How often have you felt undecided among the innumerable options that life brings upon us?
Now, more than ever, w bump across many more crossroads than perhaps our parents or grandparents did.
The liberty to choose a life partner, a career, to even selecting the city to
live in or device to talk on were fewer back then. And, while our generation does luckily receive
this gift of freedom, we are also burdened with an ever growing indecisiveness.
Most of my friends, including me,
in the middle of our twenties, are all in some dimension of life or the other, standing
in-front of these big question marks that can and that will dramatically change
our life. Being first timers, we are all scared. While some are scared to marry
the “wrong” person, others are across junctions of choosing the “right” career
field, in the process of which are losing what they already have. What leads us to this indecisiveness and hesitance?
Humans are inculcated with a sense of fear. The fear of doing the wrong - woven by the stories of the hell and the heaven, it is repeated and reminded by our society until almost it becomes an unavoidable part of our belief system. Some even become the basis of our moral system. The wrongs of being in love with not the opposite gender, the wrongs of being an unsatifactory bread earner, the wrongs of marrying twice or thrice, the wrongs of being a bad mother who is professionally also a success, the wrongs of breaking a family by divorce, the wrongs of going against our parents even if. Doing “the wrong” has become a societal failure, frequently also termed a moral failure by some. The fear of settling for anything lesser than the best also haunts most. A mediocre student shouldn't exist, and you are always expected to earn that promotion your relatives and friends won't even understand. Isn't it those same stories and society that decides the yardstick of measurement putting success on one pole and failure as everything else? Indecisiveness is an escape route we have fallen prey upon to, that delays if not completely avoids the fear of failure.
Humans are inculcated with a sense of fear. The fear of doing the wrong - woven by the stories of the hell and the heaven, it is repeated and reminded by our society until almost it becomes an unavoidable part of our belief system. Some even become the basis of our moral system. The wrongs of being in love with not the opposite gender, the wrongs of being an unsatifactory bread earner, the wrongs of marrying twice or thrice, the wrongs of being a bad mother who is professionally also a success, the wrongs of breaking a family by divorce, the wrongs of going against our parents even if. Doing “the wrong” has become a societal failure, frequently also termed a moral failure by some. The fear of settling for anything lesser than the best also haunts most. A mediocre student shouldn't exist, and you are always expected to earn that promotion your relatives and friends won't even understand. Isn't it those same stories and society that decides the yardstick of measurement putting success on one pole and failure as everything else? Indecisiveness is an escape route we have fallen prey upon to, that delays if not completely avoids the fear of failure.
Seldom do we ponder upon the basic
question of who invented these wrongs? Most of them are governed by our
society. Law defines our sexuality; Indian culture permits only monogamy and historically
prevalent patriarchy expects the man to earn more than the woman. Without
undermining the existence of any of these beliefs, we should all take the
judgement of our subjective intellect at-least once if not always going by it. (We were also gifted with it along with the so many other
negatives that we are anyway complaining about!) What if we are lucky
enough to choose the so called right option now? Does that mean an end to all
the future struggles in our professional or personal life? Does it stop the several bigger fears that are prepared to take on us in the coming days? What if we do take the
wrong road, will that bring us to a dead end? Taking the “right” decision may
not then be as important than taking a decision at the apt time, and indecisiveness is sure not helping with that.
Now, more than ever, we are indecisive; now, more than ever, we are also coward crumbled souls. Why aren’t we brave enough to close our eyes and jump off the cliff? Why can't we shut off our mind, listen to our heart and take that required plunge? Just like the stories of the hell and the heaven, we were also told that God resides in our heart. Why are we then scared of the God that resides in myths but fail to trust the one that resides inside us?
Now, more than ever, we are indecisive; now, more than ever, we are also coward crumbled souls. Why aren’t we brave enough to close our eyes and jump off the cliff? Why can't we shut off our mind, listen to our heart and take that required plunge? Just like the stories of the hell and the heaven, we were also told that God resides in our heart. Why are we then scared of the God that resides in myths but fail to trust the one that resides inside us?
P.S. (If that sounded a bit too dreamy
to your ears that only understands logic and you are having difficulty comprehending
what I just meant with that dreamy stuff, do try this experiment once. *coming soon)
