Finding Me

Chapter 7 Liberating Me

Sometimes being who we are is the only option we have got, no matter how much we get to hear that most of our lives’ events happen as a result of the choices we make. Sometimes, we try to express ourselves in such a way that we are pleasing those around us just because we are scared to be criticized or questioned, which puts us in great danger of realizing or finding out who we really are and what our purpose really is. I know I somewhat do not believe in destiny, fantasy neither, but I believe that each and every one of us has a greater purpose to fulfil, something that the individual in question excels exceptionally well and cannot deny that they are good. Knowing your greater purpose in life does not depend on what people might consider as ‘destiny’ because every one of us can change and bend the future to our own advantage. There is nothing as great as being in charge of your actions and cutting lose all that keeps you bounded to a fixed point without actually exploring your outmost potential.

Our lives’ circumstances define who we are in such a way that every single event that happens moulds us in a way that it helps us with adapting to the social environment. All our lives, we live in an interactive manner, and there is nothing as productive as living this way. I must admit that there are a lot of people who are capable of living as individuals, but I cannot afford to ignore the fact that as much as they desire to live as individuals, it is just as compelling to seek company whenever in need. As a result, our actions makes us who we are today depending on our daily actions, as whenever every day passes, a new part of our inner selves is born or recreated.

Fear is one of the greatest contributing factors that makes us who we are. Not that fear is real, but danger is, and as we all know how instinctively a human being responds when in danger, we cannot avoid the fact that this all shapes who we are and who we are yet to become. In this context, I am not referring to natural fear when facing danger only, but also when we find ourselves in situations such that we cannot really control what will happen next. As I have written in the previous chapters, one of our great fears is what the next persons have to say about who we are, what we do and how we think or reason. This is because as we grow up in certain societies, we get to be raised in such a way that our thinking has been narrowed down into an enclosed small package such that the outside is totally separated from the inside. Thinking beyond what we are actually expected to think of, reasoning beyond reason and acting out in such a way that our human behaviour deviates from that of society does nothing but gives us labels, and tames us in ways that we cannot complete the breaking loose process.

Society defines who we are, but that does not necessarily mean that we should limit ourselves to what is deemed as normal. Mind me, am not encouraging immoral practices, but a maximum state in which one should be able to practice individuality in such a way that one can think, act and behave as an individual unit, and not as a subunit of something bigger. Generally, the more greater something is, the more complex it becomes, and in this case, complexity in terms of behaving as a subunit, being part of something bigger and possibly greater, which is the society only limits ourselves from reaching greater heights as we primarily intended. All this might be confusing to some, but what we need to ask ourselves and understand fully are the components involved in the formation of a certain society. Society in general refers to a particular community of people who share the same customs, laws and traditions in such a way that they work together in fulfilling the same or a particular purpose. If we choose to go further and define the key words within the definition of the word ‘society’ such as ‘customs, laws and traditions’, we might somehow come across words such as morals and terms such as human behaviour.

Morals can be plainly considered as a set of principles of right and wrong behaviour which, every individual of a certain society needs to follow to be considered acceptable and right by most of the society. To be inclusive with this definition, one can say that morals are based on one’s sense of what is right and fair, and of course, ignoring the legal rights or duties, or rather being able to understand the difference between right and wrong. Our behaviour is governed by our traditions, as tradition includes everything that we do, how we act or behave, the way we think and our personal ideas; generally, it is what makes us who we are. However, not of course degrading what we believe in from home, is it really acceptable for us to be locked down mentally, physically or psychologically by what has been passed on to us by our ancestors, or should we allow in some form of evolution to take over and make us better persons? Again, I am not encouraging unacceptable behaviour such as deviating from our culture and tradition, but as the years passes, not embracing the fact that some of these qualities of our cultures, which obviously makes us who we are today are slowly losing their value at a considerable pace, and reasoning with such will prove to be inconclusive in the near future. After all, moralists are important in our society such that they hold on to the strong ideas about the moral principles in a corrective manner, although they are often disapproving.