Every day, every moment in our life, even if we are not absolutely conscious, we do things around us in our own unique way. From how we wake up in bed with our unique sleep position, to how we begin our day. How we eat, how we multi-task. How we smile and how we laugh. As per popular beliefs there could be about seven people in the world who look just like you do. But is it possible that they even possess all of your unique mannerisms. It surely cannot be. Nobody else can smile like you do at your friend’s wild efforts to amuse you. Nobody can look like a completely different sick person when you forget your make-up or when you shave your beard away like you do.
So we all have the magic power to change how we look,as the way others see it. But the qualities within you may not be perceived in the same generic context like how your physical appearance is understood by the others.
The best analogy I can come up with right now is that of candy. Oh how we love candy. We go to the bakers and we see different colored candy in sturdy, clear glass jars. All the different colors, each color more appealing to someone or the other. You go and pick the brightest of the lot! “I want the red one please!”. And there you go. Bright cherry red candy in your hands waiting to be consumed. Carrying all the excitement which is rapidly translating into action, you gobble up the candy in expectation of it awarding your taste buds with the same bliss it provided your eyes with. Alas! too sugary!.You decide to try the lemon green one next and now it’s too sour!. Finally for a moment you decide to let go of your visual perceptions and decide to try out the pale purple one. Blueberries! maybe you did love blueberries all along, but the flavor surely appealed to you far better than the others did.
So how do you decide which candy tastes the best by looking at how appealing they are? there’s absolutely no way to tell. Unless you try to get a taste of them each, all by yourself. So much can be said for candy, but do we not judge a person to be cruel, dangerous, unpleasant or even deemed ‘unlucky’ just by looking at them? Did we ever consider spending a chunk of our own precious time, to even try to get to know every one of them. Most of us haven’t. Sometimes even I haven’t. We are too busy cooking up the assumptions in our head that it has taken over our mind which should have worked out a way to get know the person better.
So we make an attempt to understand people. But I believe we are all guilty of rushing into conclusions about people. So again to understand how this works (I love analogies, bear with me please.), maybe we should consider a situation where we felt like we could finish a task, but the devil in the form of impatience has arrived to spoil the party. I used to be very much immersed in art when I was a young boy. I loved to paint pictures, but I preferred sketching over painting. So there were moments when I used to make sketches which I was rather proud of, only to be ruined later, because of my own doing of course. Sometimes I was told that the sketches look rather empty without an element of color in it. I used to worry far too much about how others accept my ‘art’, and I decided to paint it. Now painting, as any person who has held a paintbrush would agree, is a task requiring the utmost attention and the virtue of patience. The second I lost my patience I used to watch my hours of hard work being eaten away by blotches of dull colored paint.
So all that, actually to convey that sometimes, understanding a person can be like painting a picture. It requires patience, and attention. Maybe you always felt like you should paint the sky blue, the sky green and the mountains brown. But have you ever paused for a minute to wonder how different the things would have looked if you wanted to describe the same landscape at a different hour of the day; when the sky is blood red illuminated through clear skies by the setting sun, sea a shade of violet and the silhouettes of the mountain now more dominant than the shade itself. The colors are the qualities that we see in the person. The more we wait, the more time we spend with the person, the better we see the rainbow of personality in the individual.
Everything considered but like technology makes us friends with a single click on the internet, people do make assumptions and identify a person with a quality they find comfortable to relate with. Definitely not at all times are you linked with a quality that you would prefer to be, but that is how it is. You could be smart person who analyses situations before making decisions, someone who reads and has a wide span of knowledge in different areas. Someone who enjoys music, loves to play games and is kind and sensitive. But people are surely going to rush into a title. If you seem to be more physically attractive than the others near you, you’re the supermodel; if you’re a straight A student, you’re the bookworm. I personally don’t believe if everyone tries to figure out if the supermodel loves to read, or if the bookworm has a keen sense of fashion. It doesn’t seem really practical to try to understand every single person around us, but those we believe are close to us, we must try to invest our time in.
There is no absolute guarantee that people identify themselves with the quality others identify them the most with. Sometimes, for people like myself who rather worry a lot about what others think of me, this could be a demoralizing situation. For a person who loves to read,write,draw, play the guitar, is very sensitive I was always described as the computer geek, because ironic enough, I’d been patient with the machines as with people and was able to understand it better than the others.
For these people like myself, I believe we must be able to move on from the ‘clay‘ mentality. We must not force ourselves to change our ways just to suit the mold crafted by the opinions of others. Maybe we can all turn to the serenity of clear water. Clear water the epitome of peace; undisturbed and unhindered by the background noise. Clear water is the depiction of self reflection. We worry too much about how we are perceived by others lest we forget how we perceive ourselves. Self reflection is the core to personality development. If we gave more of a thought to what we think about ourselves and what we believe must change within ourselves so that we can grow to be someone better, we can embrace the fact that all of us are given titles in the society, by the rest of it’s members. This cannot be misunderstood as the judgement call to rubbish away all kinds of opinions given by others. The opinions could be pebbles thrown at the water surface. What we need we let it sink, we take it in. We accept it, because we believe we felt the need for change during self reflection. What we believe has no value that can contribute to our betterment; like the pebble we let it bounce away from the surface.
To restore peace within us, to master the art of acceptance, we channel our thoughts into self reflection than that of overthinking;
Because you are only the person you believe yourself to be.
I dedicate this to very special friend of mine who taught me a lot of things in life. If you ever encounter the demons of self doubt, you must know that these words are here to welcome you, and provide a sanctuary for your thoughts.
art by JCOMP. Freepik.com
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