What’s new about this? How is it unique? What makes it
different?
These questions float around in our ether, sizing up, cutting
down and sealing the fate of ideas, concepts, things and people. The world is
driven by the desire to stand out and to excel. From the very beginning of
life, we feel the pressure to be faster, stronger, sharper—better in some way
than the rest.
Ah, there’s the key phrase—‘the rest’. The need to be
something special seldom stems out of an aspiration to rise to our fullest
potential. In a world that thrives on looking down upon others, most often it
is just a desire to remain a rung higher than others on the ladder. It is not
about what makes you shine best; it’s just about shining better than others. To
move or even to imagine beyond those borders is to risk leaving the security of
the herd.
Humans probably picked up from animals the assuring safety
of being in the herd. Because the world is an unpredictable place, there is
security in large numbers and in belonging to a group. Belonging, of course, is
an indispensable need of the human heart—to have some place and someone to call
your own, because nothing comforts us like the familiar. However, beyond the
intimate circle of belonging, there are larger concentric circles that do not
so much invite us to belong as they squeeze us to fit in. Beginning from the
peer group at school to colleagues at work, or members of the religious/cultural
group we belong to, everyone is constantly pulling to remould us to the
structure of the herd. Even the choices we make—our goals, our loves, our
destinations—are shaped by the forces of fitting in.
And then comes the pull to stand out. Because we possess the
need for achievement as much as we possess the need to belong, the human
heart—and the human will—is forever torn between fitting in and striking out.
Bestselling author Stephanie Meyer’s phenomenally popular creation—the benign,
brooding, intense ‘vampire’ Edward, observes, in a moment of reflection, the
irony of humans’ deep, clawing desire to outshine others, even as they scuttle desperately
to blend in.
The true meaning of the human longing to be unique, however,
is what Abraham Maslow defines in his Pyramid of Needs as ‘self-actualisation’. It is to realise the true purpose of yourself
and to explore the horizon of your capabilities. It is when we stop taking the
success of others as a parameter, and try to chart an unexplored path, a path
that is not merely ‘different from others’ but one that is our very own.
It is to break through the boundaries of our own fear; the
fear that keeps us within the protection of the herd. Todd Skinner, the
mountaineer, said it well: “If you are not afraid, you have probably chosen too
easy a mountain. To be worth the expedition, it had better be intimidating.”
Can we stand out without succumbing to the pressure of
fitting in? Can we move our goals beyond being shinier, bulkier, speedier than
the rest of the herd? The point is not to say: I will do this better than it’s
been done before—no matter how great the ‘doer’ was. The point of Self-actualisation,
of being truly unique is: If it’s the true fulfilment of my potential, I’ll do
what’s never been done before.
This, then, is the answer to those questions floating on the
ether—I’m not just different, I am who I was meant to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment