Thoughts...

Last night, I saw this movie, Fashion. Yes, it was an effort to show the real, not so beautiful, side of the glamorous world and the people living in it. But, I felt this story could be just any body’s story.

We all dream… we all have ambitions… and as we pass those small milestones we set for ourselves, we find that we are just not happy. We always want more. We forget how much we wanted what we have and what effort we had to put in to get there. All we see is ‘Hey! He’s got more than me.’ And we run and run and tire ourselves and at the end are not even happy.

Going with the flow is the easiest thing to do. It helps in getting things done faster and you are able to climb this ‘ladder of success’ faster. But, what is the point if you reach the top and suddenly don’t want to be there anymore. You suddenly realize that you don’t even recognize yourself! And when you have lost touch with yourself that’s when you know you are truly lonely.

And when you run, you don’t have time to think. The thin line between right and wrong begins to fade out. You tell yourself; “Be practical.” What is practicality? Ceasing to be what you are? Refusing to listen to that voice inside your head which is always right? Killing your conscience? And you become shallower. If this is what growing up means, then I would rather remain a kiddo.

It’s not just our fault. This is what has been taught to us. We have been told that you have to be successful. May be it is true. But the meaning of success is not taught to us. We are told that success means heavier paychecks, success means having a wonderful flat, success means owning the best car. We are told that we have to think of being better than others somehow. We have to compete and we have to win. So we run everyday constantly trying to please ourselves, our parents, our relatives and the society and nothing seems to make anyone happy. The reason being we don’t understand success. We don’t understand happiness.

Success means recognizing and respecting your individuality. Success means always being in contact with your inner voice which helps you be yourself. Success means having the courage to accept that you are different and cannot compete with anyone. Success means understanding that you are this unique piece of a larger jigsaw puzzle. Once you see yourself helping to form the the bigger picture you realize your own worth and that gives true happiness.

-Sangeetha