Saturday, November 11, 2006
Wow, Today's Lit lesson was the best and last Lit lesson ever. Well, we said that we won't type whatever that she said on the blog, so I won't. I'll just say that it was indeed a very fun-filled lesson where we talked about almost everything. It was really great, something that I will truly miss.
On my way home, I was just thinking about a lot of stuff. As I always do after lit lessons.
You know, some people spend all their lives in hiding. Not physically, but emotionally. I know of someone who has spent all his life being subservient. I do not know this person on a personal level. Just someone I heard about. In order to inherit the family fortune from his father, he spent his life being almost a slave to his father, even to the point of betraying his mother. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not judging here. I'm not going to go all self-righteous and say that he's wrong, blah blah blah.
The question posed here is, is this all worth it? Is it worth being someone whom you're not for almost your entire life time all for the sake of money? Is it worth hiding your true emotions for the sake of pleasing others?
I truly believe that it's not worth it. It's not worth being someone whom you're totally not for the sake of money or for the sake of pleasing others. When we contemplate on what clothing to wear, we always ask ourselves what others would think of us if we wear a certain type of clothing. Sometimes, we are so caught up in what others might think that we forget about ourselves. Why are we living a life that strives to please people, and people who aren't worth pleasing? Sure, it's worth it to please the people whom we love or most importantly to please God. That's totally fine, but why are we caught up in endless doldrums of pleasing people whom we hardly know?
In life, we have to grit our teeth and please people whom we don't like or don't really know, but at what cost? Being totally fake people? Ending up hating ourselves at the end of the day? It's understandable to have to suck up to your boss for the sake of survival and for your family, but we really should not live our lives totally revolving around that.
Why are we all concerned about how people view us? Must we conform to society? Must we do something just because everyone else is doing it and become mindless zombies who can't think for themselves, allowing others to become masters of them? When we are so caught up in bothering about what others think, we become slaves to the people around us, slaves to society. We no longer control ourselves, but let others control us. At the end of the day, are the impressions that people have of us important?
I'm not saying that we should just do whatever we want, going around killing people because we feel like it. There are limits. When we do things without considering the consequences, we become a danger to the people around us. I feel that we should live life being true to ourselves, but doing it on a firm foundation of morals. The things that we say or do might hurt people, and we must always consider that.
I feel that we must not be afraid to do things that other people might laugh at. People who only bring negativity to your life are not worth listening to. They bring you down. I'm not saying that we should be proud and not consider the opinions of others. We must be able to differentiate between constructive criticism from the totally useless ones. Everything must be done with the consequences in mind, and decisions should not be impetous or rash. An example would be Amy Lee from Evanescence. She dresses in whatever way she wants, and does not bother about whether everyone dresses in that way as well. The way she dresses doesn't endanger others or bring harm to others or herself, so why shouldn't she dress that way? Just because others don't dress that way, doesn't mean we can't.
Even now, as I type my posts on this blog, I type whatever I want as long as it doesn't insult anyone or any group of people, as long as it doesn't bring harm to anyone. I don't really care about whether people might think I'm self-righteous or whatever. The purpose of this post is only to encourage others to dare to be different. We should dare to be different and not to do something just because everyone else is doing it and others would laugh if it is done a different way.
We can't control the way people think, and we can't change the impressions that people have. People are free to think in whatever way they want. Of course, we should not be different for the sake of being different. We should dare to be different when we know that the things that others do are morally unsound. After all, we don't live life just to please others.
Yup, just typing out all my thoughts. Hope that people will be encouraged.
"Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice."
"I am not bound to please thee with my answer."
- William Shakespeare
2:25 PM
