You Are What You're Told To Be

Isn’t it very depressing that when you’re a kid, everyone around you encourages you to follow your dreams, but when you’re older, somehow they act offended if you even try? You are no longer encouraged by those who once injected confidence in you? Your dance, for instance, is limited to your co-curricular activities in school (for certificates) or maybe to your family functions. Your family no longer adores the star in you the way they felt proud even when you were a goat in a fancy dress competition?

Talking of the competition, not only we compete at various levels, our parents compete with the other parents as whose child will make his/her family prouder. “Your boy opted for humanities? My champ took Science!”; “Your girl is an air hostess?  My girl is the head manager in an MNC”. There are a lot many such examples where parents are happily boasting about their child’s success but did anyone ask that science boy or the head MNC girl if they are happy with what they are doing?

The one who wanted to be a writer might end up being an architect. The guy, who wanted to be a chef, is now a doctor. The girl who once wished to be a cartoonist is now a fashion designer. Inside every next person is a person that one wanted to be and that one is currently not. Most of us have killed their dreams maybe because their dreams didn’t match with that of their family or any particular situation at a particular time. Those who are focused, always strive for what they want, they fight for it. Those who are not strong enough, simply surrender themselves to destiny. Such people start to go with the flow and often curse their destiny for not giving them what they deserved.

Almost all of us had the toy guitar that played some random music when you press a button. For us, it was just a guitar, but for someone, it was his passion; something his parents didn’t like in his hands as he was growing. The “chaar log kya kahenge?” tension has taken many lives & a lot more are yet to be slaughtered.

Then comes the worst thing of all times – comparison. No matter how many times we tell the people to stop comparing an Apple with a Peach but what eventually happens? In the race of being an Apple, the Peach ends up looking like a butt. Not everyone can ignore what would make their parents happy or what can quiet the stupid relatives. Those relatives that magically appear the moment you turn 25. You might not know their names but they are ready to whip you with their tongues. Every “what do you do? How much do you make? When will you get married? What are your plans?” kind of question is as displeasing as the face of the one who is asking.

Plenty of us are unhappy with what we are doing because we do what we are made to do. Irritated at work, cribbing about jobs, looking at those following their passion and envying them.  In the end we don’t know who is to be blamed: the family, the relatives, the fear, the peer pressure, the circumstances or just ourselves for not having the courage…