Let Go Of Fear And Do What You Love

- BY NEHA

I am sure most of you have succumbed to the ‘What will people say?’ mental bug. For me this phrase is akin to a ‘bug’ that resides and thrives in several people’s subconscious and acts insidiously on all their dreams and desires.

This age-old threadbare cliché has become more and more ludicrous with time. The ‘What will people say?’ self-sabotaging mindset (essentially rooted in fear) has been responsible for nipping in the bud so many dreams, hopes, wishes and desires in this world, that I am staggered at the fact that people in today’s day and age still harbor in their belief system this rather antiquated and false thinking.

Being born and brought up in a country where archaic customs, traditions and beliefs are upheld so rigorously in several parts of the nation, it frustrates me at times just thinking about how some of us talk ourselves out of following what we know deep in our hearts will make us happy.

The so-called ‘traditional boundaries’ arbitrarily drawn and demarcated by our society ages ago were not only unreasonable at the time of their genesis but are even more preposterous now.

Take for instance this - how many parents still do not let their children marry a partner of their choice because he/she belongs to another caste, or eats meat, or the girl happens to be a few years older than the boy, or something as ridiculous as love marriages being looked down upon in their community? And the reason cited by family members for denying marriage in such cases is primarily ‘What will people say?’

Disregarding an individual’s personal choice of his/her life partner by coercing them to marry someone else based on a rather daft societal standard is, to me, an ungodly act in a society where ‘What will people say?’ is at times construed as ‘What will God say?’

It is true that we all live in a society comprising of several people. As part of a society, we are all inter-dependent on one another in some way or the other that benefits each one of us. No one wants to live alone, isolated from the rest, forever. Therefore, in order to happily co-exist in a society, no person in their right mind would want to deliberately say or do something that is likely to make them an outcast. Perhaps the ‘What will people say?’ outlook originated from the fear of being ostracized by the society. While this fear may have been somewhat valid in historic times, when much fewer people inhabited the world and the society was largely run on the diktats of the powerful few; the world as we know it today is so vast, diverse and liberal, that the fear of what others may say should no longer be an impediment to our happiness. In reality, society today is more accepting than we give it credit for. However, many people are still locked in place due to their outdated beliefs, which have been passed down through generations, and refuse to take their blinders off and see the world for what it is today.

Another phrase synonymous to ‘What will people say?’ is ‘You must…” – (‘you must do an MBA’, ‘you must get married by 28’, etc). Both phrases are intended to directly or indirectly force a person to do what the society deems appropriate and instigate fear in the mind of the concerned person, so much so that he/she generally capitulates.

There have been myriad instances where I have been told or overheard others being told ‘what will people say if you do not get married’, ‘what will people say if you quit your job’, ‘what will people say if you decide to go back to school at this age’, ‘what will people say if you get a divorce’, ‘you must study science’, ‘you must take up finance’, etc. However, over a period of time I have become immune to all this. I listen to people telling me this but I simply do not react because in reality, it neither makes any difference to me any longer nor do I feel the need to justify myself. In fact I am proud that these phrases no longer have the power to elicit a strong reaction out of me (couple of years back I would have literally ranted and raved if someone told me ‘What will people say?’ in response to my choices and decisions).

It is important to understand that if what you wish to do in life deviates from the society’s customary choices, there are primarily two kinds of people who may raise questions and/or pass remarks on your intended actions.

The first kind consists of those who love to indulge in backbiting and gossiping. Such people are merely insecure. They themselves neither had the courage nor the moral fibre to transgress society’s rather regressive traditional boundaries, and therefore take consolation by berating those who have the strength of character to tread the path they want to. Is it not plain stupidity on our parts to actually pay heed to a bunch of insecure imbeciles, so much so that we base our most important decisions on their ridiculous thoughts? Personally, I care two hoots whether such people think highly of me or less of me. Their definition of what’s ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ is almost claustrophobic for me.

The second kind includes people who have your best interests at heart but have always followed the tried and tested path in life themselves. Their choices in life have been largely conservative and rooted in fear of failure. Such people do not enjoy seeing you fail but as they belong to the school of thought that believes in adhering to societal norms and at times have a somewhat myopic view of the world, they consider your chances of success or happiness to be abysmally low.   

I have made and continue to make some rather unconventional choices in my life. Whether it was choosing to pursue my Master’s degree in a field that had limited career options, or quitting a well-paying international job because I was simply not happy there, or deciding to marry of my own accord.

In my opinion, we all should think about and act upon what will make us truly happy and not what will elicit the most number of approving nods from the society. Even if you experience failure the first time around, remember the following quote:

“It’s better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate” – George Burns

For those of you who have watched actor-comedian Jim Carrey’s commencement address (delivered to the students and faculty of the Maharishi Institute of Management, Fairfield, Iowa, U.S.A.) video, you may recall that the sentiments echoed by Jim in his speech resonate with the above quote. Jim said, “I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which is that you can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.”

Failure is largely inevitable in life but we cannot let this fear prevent us from doing something we truly want. Remember you can fail even if you follow society’s so-called practical path in life. So let go of fear and do what you love.        

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default” – J.K. Rowling