Imagine your whole life you wore a pair of shades...
...but only now you found out about their existence.
You are waking up to a realisation that things aren't as they've seemed...
Your life feels heavy, even depressing at times, and you are discovering that the dark tint of your shades is to blame. You are thinking about taking the shades off, but you hesitate...
After all, you are not certain what will happen if you remove them. You question if it's worth the discovery as a strange mix of curiosity and fear washes over you.
Perplexed, you wonder 'Who's put those shades on and how come I wasn't aware of them?'
Family, cultural, and social shaping you received throughout life, has made you believe that how you SEE REALITY is how it truly is. You never questioned the truth. You couldn't have known !
You had no way of telling you are living a lie as it was all you knew. What you saw was the norm because everyone around you was following the same lies. Lies about relationships, lies about love, lies about happiness, and above all lies about you. Something inside you always felt irritable. Discontent and disjointed. But you couldn't quite put your finger on it. Because your shades - like everyone else's - were invisible...
....apart from a few.
Only those who took them off can see others wearing them. For them life flows with ease and they have no intension of wearing them again. None whatsoever! Why should you? To look 'NORMAL' to others? Yes once you take them off you seem to be somehow 'unusual', even 'weird' to others. Do you know why?
Because you stopped pretending... Because you realised that you have a choice NOT to continue in the pretentious mass madness. You chose to follow your OWN path instead of doing things the way they have been done for generations. You have your own realisations. You trust your intuition and you let your emotions lead you. You discern your mind's deceptions from the truth because your heart is open. You celebrate your originality by finding your purpose - that which serves others as much as yourself. Your Soul is alive in every moment and dancing.
Daring to be different is a very courageous act. Not only because you walk a path less traveled alone (or with just a few if you are lucky). The folks with the shades on gossip about you and judge you. They laugh at you, they ostracise you. They are scared of you... They know something is up. They see you are different. GOOD different. You shine because your light isn't as dimmed as theirs. They are jealous...
They like to get a piece of that for themselves but they don't know how. The only way they know to deal with their POWERLESSNESS is to make you look like a fool. To make you look like someone who has lost the plot...
But who is really laughing here?
The moment you stop pretending is the moment you learn that your reality was as false as a forced smile of an unhappy folk. You are fed up with the stress and mundane of your ordinary day, curious and thirsty for the truth. You start to search for it, realising life is simple without all its distortions. Without the lies and games. Why would anyone want it otherwise anyway??
You would argue that once those shades are off and truth is revealed anyone would choose to keep them OFF. One benefits so much from living authentically, right? But no, it is not that simple...
There is the FEAR. The fear of looking 'weird' which comes with exclusion from the majority. You are scared of being judged and criticised. How will you stand up to ALL those 'normal' people? You, on your own!? 'Would I even make it without the bloody shades? you ask. 'I might end up more miserable... Maybe that is what others chose in the end? They accepted that life is a struggle.'
Shared pain is bearable, right? Because being excluded, being called 'A WEIRDO', hurts more...
No. Not unless you belive what others say is true. It all boils down to how much you love yourself really. If you don't, the pain of rejection by masses hurts much more than walking blind, collectively bumping into each other. Collective suffering is normal, isn't it? It is how your parents suffered, and you owe it to them, don't you? You want to suffer because they did too. They are your heroes. You look up to them and want to be like them - broken by the life they've chosen. Like the horses pulling a cart on a busy road, eyes partially shielded to reduce the risk of panic. Exhausted but proud to be a part of the heard...
Oh yes, there is the carrot at the end of the day! That is what they lived for. That is what YOU live for. Never mind you suffer on your journey, being a slave to the system...
The system would collapse if we all freed ourselves, you know?
But. There is the fear of the unknown...
Of course it is! It is an ever present companion of change. After all we grew up in captivity. Bread to follow, not to lead... unaware of the vastness of life's undiscovered fields.
Thank you for reading. If my article contributed to understanding yourself, please be generous and share it with others.
Copyright © 2017 Michaela Patel