By Simran Dhingra
Ever since we humans came into existence , each one of us has been ceaselessly trying to answer a classical question- a question with no definite and no constant answer—the question of –WHO AM I ? Am I yet another common man, just another incognito person in the crowd? Or am I that one in a million. ?
Almost all of us quiz ourselves with these questions on a daily basis .Each day we wake up, all set to subjugate the barriers and obstacles in our path, face the challenges approaching us and strike a balance between our social and professional life but while doing so we all succumb to the LABYRINTH OF LIFE and fall into a typical rabbet so acutely that it almost feels there is no way out. .! Some of us suppress the inquiry, some of us deviate it or substitute but one cannot KILL it for as long as you will continue to live, this question will be stuck to you like a magnet or glue.
SO WHO REALLY AM I??
Plethora go on associating this question WITH their names, their genes , their ancestry and millions strike a vain affiliation to their grades , their popularity and possessions. And well coming to the teenagers, most of them just spend their teens living under the assumption that it has something to do with the no. of likes /comments/pokes/friend requests they receive on Facebook or how many followers they have managed to get on twitter. Some even live by the clichés, prejudices and pre-conceived notions one has about the other person.
What we have terribly failed to understand is that we are not our job. We are not how much money we have in the bank. We are also not the brand we wear or the perfume that we use! We are neither the car we drive nor the contents of our wallet. We are not the rank or the so called “image” we have in the society we are not at all the way people perceive us to be either. On the contrary, monetary income is undoubtedly the most perfect masquerade of a man’s legitimate worth and those who link their selves with it shall never be able to come to a definite conclusion about who they actually are in reality.
Surprising, what we have been treating all these years as an” appalling question” – a hideous question of WHO AM I ? Wasn’t the most certainly a question after all. ! And what isn’t just like any other question, how can it have a possible and a predictable answer? MAN is a quest, I repeat, not a question but a quest- a quest of self –discovery and the unearthing of oneself. AND the answer to the question who am I Lies in the endless journey itself that u traverse .there is never going to be a destination for it.
You’re you, pure YOU! You are somewhere deep inside YOU smoked and sullied by the layers of disbelief, misconceptions and obscurity and perforated by the training and conditioning each one of us undergoes. Nothing external, peripheral or superficial about it!
Also, the greatest problem we face is that when we ask “Who am I”… who is going to answer us? Most probably the answer will come from your tradition, from your scriptures, from your conditioning. but , have you ever pondered upon the fact that each time an individual is born -it’s like a new addition is made, a new chapter appears , a neoteric colour is being added primarily to the palette and what is occurring or happening for the 1st time , how can it ever have a prefabricated answer ?
Moreover, the society would never let you focus or discover who you really are. Instead, it will deviate you from that very exploration. Rather, it will make you tread on a path contradictory to it and bait you in a pointless rat race. It will mould and sculpt you the way you are ideally supposed to be rather act in a society.
But For once in our life, let’s avoid falling a prey to this rut, this rat race. Let’s dodge this conditioning and inure! For once let us be our own mirror to our derelictions and propriety.
Let’s avoid being a part of the usual crowd. Instead let’s stand out and do the things our own way. let’s discover who we really are and the divine purpose we are destined for. Each person is destined for great things in life until he deflects from this journey of self –discovery
So, let’s try to be a chess player and not a chess piece. Let us decide on our moves and path and not reconcile to other’s opinions. Let us dance on our music rather than changing our moves to match other’s music for we are the architects of our own fate and the captains of our own soul and that’s who we truly are and that’s the way each one of us we should be. No two ways about it. !
And always remember what Shakespeare has rightly quoted –
“There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures”.
Author is a head girl of Little Angels High School, Gwalior.
