One of the most daunting tasks for a human in my opinion is knowing himself, and then even more difficult is preserving himself or simply not loosing himself, in the pursuit. There is something very striking both in young children and old people that make them very attractive, they are themselves. They don’t act for our sake, or try to be different than what they really are. Its just that honest admission of their shortfalls and their excellence that appeals to the person, for innately everyone wants to be himself. It sometimes baffles me, that some people live their whole lives just for appeasing someone else. A husband does one job over another opportunity to appease his wife, a lover wears a dumb shirt which he never would have worn just to appease his girlfriend, an employee drinks at a party cause his other colleagues would think, he’s a nerd etc. The worlds greatest people have all been eccentrics in their own way, not going with the way of the world, and maybe that’s why we adore them so much. In my opinion every individual has something in him that makes him different to everyone else that we know. Some of these qualities are superficial and don’t deserve much attention. I am talking about those innate qualities that make up the core of a person. And most of us give up on those qualities either due to the fear of non acceptability and some due to the fear of acceptability.

The tragedy begins young in childhood, when the parents compel the young mind to being something it isn’t. They want him to be dignified in front of people, talk politely. If one child is silent, they compel the other to learn from his silence, but isn’t noise as beautiful as silence. I remember once when I as talking to one teacher when I was budding as a poet, asking him which poet’s style I should follow. He asked me to follow the path of my heart, as I am still just a budding river, that needn’t be tamed. It is the wilderness that creates beauty in it. So is the case with a child, he is born to be wild. If a child is silent their might be something wrong with him unless he was a saint in his earlier life, and was born back with the same vasanas. The reason the parent does this compelling, is he has some expectations on the child or more like he wants the child, like he is not or he is. In my opinion one of the greatest sin a parent can do is to steal a child of himself. Schools do not do much good and further curb the innateness within the child, and the biggest tragedy in life is, we don’t realize what we have lost, until we find it in someone else.

Institutions that govern our lives are another cause for destroying a person’s personality. Religion, marriage, parenthood, universities, employment organizations are all a part of these institutions that tamper the growth of an individual instead of helping in discover himself. To correct myself, it is not always the institution, but maybe the interpretation and implementation of the institution that does this. A perfect example of an institution gone wrong is marriage. There are several purposes of marriage, and the most important purpose of it in my opinion is discovering one another with the help of the other person. No one shares such privacy, intimacy and space with you as your spouse, and he or she would know many things about the person which no other might even imagine. Marriage to me is a laboratory, a daily coffee club with two friends sitting every day across the table and sipping a coffee and conversing, a battleground between two egos, a playground for fulfilling and transcending your sexual desires, an experience of experiencing evolution through parenthood etc. I was one day very surprised to read in a newspaper that about a third of Indian youth in metropolitan cities are contemplating not marrying at all! And maybe due to social compulsion or due to peer pressure or due to loneliness one might opt for a late marriage, which many a times can be compromising. i have seen many friends and cousins get married in recent times, and sometimes I wonder, is marriage today all about formalities, social compulsions and social restrictions?? There is rarely true love for the family members of one’s spouse. When I was in love with a girl earlier, I looked upon her parents as my own, not more, not less. And tragically even though we parted ways with time for our reasons, the love for her parents still exists in totality which baffles me even sometimes. Maybe, that’s love. And why is it difficult for a people to be themselves in the case of marriages, because we don’t try to understand what love is. Love is mistaken for attraction, infatuations, commitment, lust, attachment, expectations, responsibility etc.

Of course employment organizations can do very little to help you discover or preserve yourself. Cause most of the times, there are preset rules, regulations, commitments and expectations that in the longer run generally curb the growth of the individual except as per as the office he holds. A thought process is fed into the mind, so he does not stand against that thought process some day later in life.

Maybe the greatest service a person can do to this world is discovering himself and then preserving himself against all odds in the world. For one day he might need to contribute for the betterment of himself and everyone around him and that can be done when he truly knows who and what he is. Then what is the way to keep yourself from being curbed by everything around you. Its a tough question, but I have only one answer. Check every step you take in life, every lesson that you learn and check if it has helped in expanding you as a person or on the contrary curbed you or your thought process, has it freed you from inhibitions or further confined you. If we remain ourselves untainted by the vagaries of the world around us, we are as beautiful as the picture on this post. Its a journey not many people wish to take or rather realize even to undertake, and for everyone who does it cheerio guys and girls, we rock!!

Carlos M.Gutierrez, Ph.D.

President & CEO

GM Underwriters