You Don’t Have to Go With the Flow
In recent times, there has been a significant increase in the inclination of people to follow the latest societal trends. We have been repeatedly told in life to just go with the current or just go with the flow. Its biggest example is in the fashion industry. The comfort of your clothes or whether you like them or not is becoming less and less important and people care more about what everyone else is wearing. We get the latest phone just because it is something everyone has. This trend extends beyond fashion, permeating various aspects of life to the point where people deviating from societal norms are considered alien in society. It’s becoming so common that people might go to great lengths, even altering their entire lifestyle and mindset, solely to align themselves with societal expectations. They are ready to give up and compromise on their morals just to earn the respect of others.
This is not only limited to social media trends but at times we also tend to blindly follow the opinions of others without any regard for whether we like what we are doing or not. This is especially prevalent in the culture from where I’m from. People don’t have their own personal thoughts and just follow what others are saying like a herd of sheep.
This topic I feel is especially important for the people in the young generation. They are the most susceptible to it because in school such an environment has been made in which students feel they have to align themselves with the ‘cool kids’ so that they can have a higher status and have more friends.
Reflecting on my own experiences, I noticed a shift in my personality as well. At one point in time I never used to care about trivial things such as what others were doing, what dress I was wearing etc. and neither did the people in my class but as we got older and we had much more exposure to the world it started becoming increasingly important due to the pressure to conform to the norms.
I noticed that my friends were changing themselves and people were trying to act ‘cooler’ and follow the latest trends. Just to keep up with this change, I underwent so many changes without even realizing what was going on. After some time had passed I noticed small changes in what I used to do and what I was doing. The way I talked had changed, I felt ashamed at times of the clothes I wore and felt I had to change myself to fit in. This kept on happening until I realized that I had completely changed my personality and focused on things in life I never thought I would have and at the end of the day it did no good to anyone. It was just a worthless waste of time and energy. Looking back, I could’ve better spent my resources in learning and enhancing myself and becoming the best version of me I could. But instead I became a copied version of someone else and wasted my thoughts on my actions, clothes etc.
But why, why should we go against the flow? I mean if you look at it, it doesn’t look like it’s affecting anyone in any way right? On the surface it looks like no change has happened to the person’s life but no one is truly happy about what they are doing on the inside. You can never be happy by a copy paste path of another person. Unless that path is not forged by your own thoughts, that feeling of satisfaction can never be achieved. If we go back to my example. I can tell you that I was never truly satisfied no matter how many friends I got and no matter how easy it was to just copy others. The only point I felt actual inner satisfaction was when I forged my own path with my own thought and honestly there was a point when it just became a pain to live life according to others. You just feel empty inside.
It may seem pointlessly difficult to go against the flow as it is always the easier option. It is always easier to do things according to the will of others than to formulate your own thoughts. Why should we think and develop our own ideology when there is a norm that is accepted by the masses no matter how messed up it may be. We would much rather prefer to go down a path which goes against everything we like and have thought about just so that it saves us from the process of thinking about how to go about our affairs. It is so easy to follow trends rather than being the trend-setter.
Now I’m not trying to say that you should always go against the thoughts and actions of others. It is definitely beneficial to listen to the advice of others and follow their good habits but we should not internalize every sort of advice. We should have the ability to distinguish right from wrong and be ready to break off from the herd when the time is right. I mean it doesn’t make sense to jump off a cliff just because everyone is doing it.
So I will end by saying that, it is time to start thinking. Think about what is wrong and internalize that it is wrong no matter what the herd is saying. It’s time to stop just swimming with the current and it’s time to go against the current before your actions just aren’t you and you see an absolute stranger when you look into the mirror. Before you become a brainless corpse that doesn’t think and blindly follows. Before you become mindless sheep that go wherever the grass seems greener. Think clearly about what you’re doing before just blindly following the opinions of others and the trends in the world. There is a quote for going against the flow:
“Some will go with the flow and go down a waterfall while others will go upstream against the flow and achieve their destiny.”
