Today’s topic is hard to write down in a cohesive manner, maybe because it still lacks clarity in my mind. So the deal is: sometimes I have those gut feelings or opinions on something that I cannot clearly argument or justify, but I know deep down they are right for my circumstance. To make matters worse those gut feelings also tend to go against the popular or mass-media opinions or social pressure so it’s all the harder to argue for them publicly.
Let me give an example: when I was a teenager or a young adult a lot of my peers were getting credit cards or taking out mortgages or making some other financially risky moves. Being in debt always seemed like the last resort to me so I never did that and never understood their haste. However, the common opinion among them and others (and what mass media endorsed probably) was that it’s perfectly OK and is actually a common behavior. As I grew older I realized that they fell prey to marketing, instant gratification instinct, peer pressure and a host of other factors but at the time it was really hard trying to explain my take on it so I don’t think I ever did. Rather, I had put myself in an observer position where I wouldn’t follow their actions and I didn’t judge them either. I followed my own course and did what I think was best for my well-being, trying to not give in to peer pressure. I think over time it’s worked well for me as I’ve been debt-free all my life. I have a credit card (hard to live without one these days) but have set up automated payments so I never paid interest on it.
Some other examples of my not following the norms would be not having kids (though I’m married), not going to the same university as friends and not living in the same city where I was born and raised (not even the same country in my case). With the perspective given by my mature age :-) I’m happy with the choices I’ve made even though they may have incurred some upfront emotional cost. And to a teenager/young adult this cost may seem like a high price to pay and so they avoid making slightly harder choices, so I’m not condemning anyone here for not making those choices. However, looking back now, these costs seem rather minor, life’s part and parcel rather than big scary highly emotionally costly decisions they looked like back then.
I guess a lot of people may have regrets about the choices they made in the past because they followed the herd and now wish they had more courage to make different choices and a thicker skin to absorb the emotional blows.
I don’t know what it is that builds those qualities up in a person. It might be a matter of parenting and building your children’s confidence so that they will not easily budge and have an internal compass to steer them in the right direction? It might be a non-conformist attitude and rebellious temperament, passed to you in your genes? It may be a few experiences at a young age when you observed the causal relationship between your actions and the outcomes and internalized it? I would lean towards this being a trainable skill at a young age (young brains being more malleable).
Well, I’ve used up much more than my alloted 5 mins, a good choice looking back at it from now :-)