We are all winners

The more we grow, the less we believe in. Our belief in our true emotion, our true feelings, our thoughts, our self, is shaken. Every day we learn that feelings and emotions that are truly felt, have to be hidden. We are taught to be practical, what is it called, yeah “realistic.”  If we want to make a mark and be somebody that the society would respect, we got to stop fooling around, get real and put our head in the game. Ok, I’m on board with this concept.

But then we realise, this is not a game, it’s a bloody race!

Do you know where all this starts? It starts on that god forsaken day when we take part in our first ever contest. We are excited because it is our first contest! We just want to do our best, have fun and make a memory of it.  After a while, when the circus ends, it is characterised by announcing who the winner is.

Now, as we are completely unaware of the impact the following events are going to have on us and our life, we believe everything that comes our way. We are told that each of us performed brilliantly, to the best of our capabilities and that choosing a winner was a herculean task. Then we are told that though a tough job, the winner has been chosen. But before announcing the result, we are told one thing that none of us should ever forget, wherever we go, whatever we do. It is that WE are ALL WINNERS! We are all winners!

And the new products that we are, we believe in that statement and don’t really bother about what follows. Done. The ceremony ends, and only the kid who won, knows it and the other kids don’t really care because we all won, so why bother remembering that one kid’s name.

As we go back to our own real world comprising of our dad, mom and few other important people, we are welcomed and honoured as though we have, for the first time in our life, achieved something! Everybody is happy and congratulating us and our work. We are being praised non-stop and our work is being passed on and displayed for all to see. It’s the best feeling in the world. And about 10mins into the joy ride, somebody comes up asks, “What did he win?” We don’t pay any attention because we know that everyone there won and we believe in that fact considering the way we were received by our family. Our parents reply to it saying, “He did not win the contest, but he did really well. Almost made it though”

All of a sudden our joy ride ends and we are confused as to what just happened. To add to it the person continues to talk, “Awe!! It would have been so great to see him win in his first ever contest! It would have been perfect! Never mind, he can try again.”  And we are thinking, try again? Try again for what, we all won! But our parents seem to agree with this third person and somehow the atmosphere is just not as it was 2mins back. Something has changed.

Grow up a little and graduate a few classes, and we realise how false this statement, which we believed with all our heart when we were first told, actually is. Slowly, we find our self being compared, analysed, interpreted and finally ranked. Not everyone who participates, wins. We are not appreciated for trying, but for being the best of the lot.  Our worth is then numbered in a report card and is made to be authorised by our parents.

Now, if somebody comes up to us and says that our sibling is a total freak, how would we react? We would flare up, be all defensive and give him a piece of our mind, which would somewhere involve points insinuating what a bigger freak he is.

We do this, fully aware of the fact that our sibling in realty, is actually a freak. But, he is our freak. We know that his craziness does not define him, speak of his capabilities, his nature and the kind of a human being he is. 

Similarly when that progress report goes to our parents, their instinct is to react defensive and think of all the things that I just mentioned. But because they have been taught to be “realistic”, better judgement prevails. Instead of feeling their natural emotions, they blame the teacher. Then blame the school. Then finally it’s our turn. Awe man.

We are asked why we don’t perform well. What is the problem? Why don’t we study and avoid these judgemental reports in the first place. The problem is that they are as bothered by it as we are. And because they are grown-ups we expect them to react in a manner different to us, that is, to be mature. But like they say, common sense is not common; similarly maturity is not a trait of every adult.

In their quest to be realistic, and the need to make sure that their children do not commit the same mistakes they have, somewhere they lose the sense of differentiating from what is important and what is not. Everybody wants their children to stand apart and for that, the solution is to win the race. Here is where we get it wrong. We don’t have to win the race to be different, we already are different! We are the best version of ourselves and all we need to do is work on our strengths and figure out how to turn our weaknesses around.

For this lack of judgement, refusal to understand this basic point, the children have to pay a price. They have to grow up thinking and believing that winning, succeeding and living life on the society’s terms is the right thing to do. Somewhere in that mad race to fulfil, god knows whose ambitions, we snap. We realise that this is not what we want. It’s not what we thought about in the first place. And it’s definitely not something that makes us happy. All this time, we have been so busy to achieve that point in our life, when we will in the real sense, feel happy and content, that we forget to enjoy the ride. We forget to live the way we wished to, only because we thought life and happiness was waiting on the other side.

Now that we are here, neither we like this side nor did we enjoy the ride leading to it. For the first time in a long, long time we feel our natural emotions, our natural feelings. We’ve denied them for so long that we are not even aware that they exist! And now that this volcano of emotions has erupted, it will be a while until it cools down. And by that time, we’ve already understood how wrong we were about life, about our self, about loving the idea of being happy instead of trying to constantly be in that state. Then all of a sudden we remember that statement we once believed in.

We are all winners.

And we think to our self, as simple as it sounds and nobody really believes in it truly when it is being preached, it actually is the truth! The idiots, who crafted this sheepish strategy to fool the world in believing that everyone is a winner, actually gave out the biggest secret to happiness.  

And there we have our EUREKA moment.

If we are all winners, we don’t have to prove anything to anybody. Not to our parents, not our peers and not to the society. It is a fact, not a possibility.

And there we are, as shocked and confused as we first were when we had realised that we did not win that contest.

So, why did it take so long to understand this simple fact? It’s because we were being moulded into what the society believes is right and not to our natural, instinctive ideas. Before this, we dint even know that we could mould our self into something that we believe in.

That was the extent of the impact that our first contest and subsequent contests had on us.

A heavy price to pay, don’t you think, for our blatant lack of respect towards our own thoughts and feelings? And as human beings, because we know the price of everything and the value of nothing, it works in our favour this one time. After realising that the price we have paid is our time, effort, money and most importantly, the glorious years of our life on something we don’t value, it’s hard now to think how the society wants us to.

That is the time when we break out of the clone mould and come into our own, natural, unique self.

But why pay that price at all? Why make the mistakes that everyone makes, in their quest to be the society’s idea of respect? Let us walk on our own unique path that we have chosen for our self and make our own mistakes. It is not true that everyone has to experience each and everything on their own to learn valuable lessons. There is so much we can learn from others. And that comes from observation. Observing our surroundings, people, situations together with never letting go of the capacity to think on our own. Consultation and discussions are not prohibited. But let the final decision be the result of our analysis, of what we believe is right or wrong.  

We are all winners. And all winners have brains and all brains function! We just need to continuously sharpen it by thinking and thinking some more. Don’t let the world make us believe in something that we can’t seem to process. We should not hide or suppress what we truly feel and think, about love, friendship, work, job, career, marriage and a million other things, at least from our self. Modifying them is good. But altering them completely, against our nature, will only harm us.

Now, before we go through the process of learning crap, then realising its crap and then unlearning crap, its better we label crap, as crap. 

Life will be easy, fun and worth taking risks for.