Societal acceptance and why you desire that

I considered myself an evolved species in a huge spherical environment. I was ambitious and pompous (I still am), I considered my dreams to become somebody significant as the end of the road, Little did I know about the vast untouched ocean of ideas around me.

When I changed my perspective of seeing things (Which of course took some time), I had a revelation, I was just the collection of ideas that were engulfed into my brain since the day I came out of the bio-tunnel (Just made this term).

I was taught the language slowly, Although It wasn't taught consciously to me, I just mimicked the lads and lasses around me.

I learned about a basic force in physics called gravity through observation and mistakes.

I started to watch people around me and learned body language to live my life ahead. It taught me how important social norms are. Everyone around me was following those rules. Rules were set.

How to poop and eat?

How to greet somebody you know?

How to talk to a new person?

How to smile when you don't want to?

How to showcase your pseudo-social status?

How to pursue the degree that you aren't interested in and how to enter the so-called elite institutions that commanded social respect?

All of that was preset, step by step.

All you need is an entry into this world and you’re set to become the next version of versions around you. You will come out of this structured jungle almost the same as everybody else.

The schools here are designed to make us run in the herd.

Colleges have courses and curriculums designed to produce an obedient workforce for the top 1% and for the businesses owned by them.

Nobody talks about the unique combination of traits that you have and how to leverage those traits. Everyone is obsessed with following the preset norms.

Just of one thing: Societal acceptance.

Societal Acceptance

It won’t be an exaggeration if I tell you that everything that we do, every action we commit to, and every desire we form or chase is just a modified way to fit into society.

Humans have a history of living in groups. The individuals who were vocal and dominant enough to lead were termed as alpha. All others followed his directions. The one who sat on the spot of the leader had all the power within his fist.

Times changed, Humans evolved, but it's been rightly said that

“you can't deny the basic biology through a small progress in chronology”.

We all are still hardwired to behave the same way. Our systems are structured to give power to the top-ranked individuals.

What are people gonna think?

This is an omnipresent fear that everyone faces, The fear of what people are gonna think!

The same society that teaches us norms and rules to behave also brilliantly teaches us to care about the opinions of others around us.

As a counter effect of the conditioning done by society, we start to give a lot of time to impress others. We start to develop a desire to impress others as that is our way to find social acceptance.

As the technology exploded with tiny lethal bombs of social media validation, we all got more and more glued to our virtual screens and started to treat the social media metrics as the measure of social success.

We never asked: Is it even significant?

We never questioned because we are never taught to do that. The only time we asked questions when we faced difficulty in a math problem during school. We usually accept all other things.

We accepted the norm of renting out our time for money,

We accepted the rule to be financially stable by 25,

We accepted the norm of being married to someone at least by 30,

We accepted everything that was thrown at us because if we didn't, the ultimate fear would have arisen:

“What are people gonna think of me !”

I have tagged social norms and chasing societal acceptance as a deadly villain, also I might come across as an extremist in these passages, This is because I have seen the ill effects of social norms.

Most of us (including me) are not able to pursue what they really want to do in life just for the sake of fitting into the societal cage.

We don’t pursue our unpopular passion, We don’t marry that ideal one, We don’t wear our comfy outfits for those outings,

We don’t do what we want to do, all we do is what we have downloaded from society over the years.

Your ideas are not original

All of our ideas are unoriginal. Surprisingly while I am writing this blog post I know that my ideas are not mine. I am never arrogant about the originality of my ideas.

This is because most of our ideas are downloaded from society.

Every belief of yours including your religion and ethics, they all were designed by people who lived centuries ago. You practice the rituals because you are told to do so or you have a fear embedded inside of you that tells you if you don't do what is expected from you, you will be booed.

All the desire you form, the desire to own a lavish mansion, getting associated with an attractive partner, working at a top company, filling the wardrobe with brands known to elevate your status game, all of these things are given to you by the people around you.

Every idea you form is just the permutation and combination of the previous idea inside your mind.

It's always a good idea to be humble about this and not get pompous when you create a new song, form a company, or write a new blog (just like this one) because all you are doing is just forming new connections.

The same happens with a structured society, a group gets influenced by a few older sets of ideas and they mould it to influence others around them and the chain goes on.

As we all follow social norms, we all accept the ideas of people above us in the social hierarchy and don't question that. This is how this whole system is formed.

System of religion, the system of business, or the system of education, They all are formed by individuals who have downloaded their ideas and propagate it further.

Is there an end to social norms?

The only way to deal with a parasite is to know that you have a parasite in your body, Most people don't know this exists.

They accept social norms as just another ‘normal thing’.

The problem with social norms is that the more you follow them ,the more you fall in them.

Social norms are made to structure the cluttered society. As every concept is made with some short-term benefits in mind but over the years the concept turns into a norm and those who deny it are thrown out.

The only way to minimize the effect of social norms and not fall into the chase for validation from society is by constantly questioning and removing unnecessary cages around your life.

A rebel will get criticized, People will laugh at him/her, but the way to get out of this societal acceptance cage is to break it, nobody will come with a key and open you up. You will have to take your own stand.

#TheTabishTalks

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