Our conditioning begins from birth. You will get validation if you become what people want, not yourself.
Living in the society you will be praised for some of these parts but denied for the others until conflicts burst out and take an ugly turn, just because they weren’t expressed to begin with.
If someone has a different behavior from his peers he will get bullied for it. His innocence will be up for mockery and he will be ashamed of himself even though he did nothing wrong. If someone doesn’t follow the mob’s thinking then his ideas are wrong.
Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the great philosophers of the 19th century, spent most of his productive time in solitude and he has managed to shape our modern thinking… So is being an individualistic thinker worth it or not?
When our society appreciates people for who they are instead of who they are supposed to be there will be growth in every aspect. People will feel welcomed and at home and their positive attributes will develop.
We have a list of what qualities we should have and we drive ourselves crazy to get it. We put on a façade in an attempt to please others and deny our screaming inner selves. So how can we be happy?
Most of our society’s questions today has become: how can I be happy, how can I manage depression, how can I find meaning in life… all these stem from not being our true selves.. We judge others in an attempt to feel better about ourselves but we will have the same level of acceptance to ourselves.
Learning from each other in an attempt to grow is what makes life interesting. When we accept each other for who we are and we look for our similarities instead of our differences we grow and change for the better.
BY SENAIT GEBREHEIWOT
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 18 MARCH 2022
