I ROCK! YOU ROCK! HE ROCKS! SHE ROCKS! LET"S SCALE HEIGHTS WITH OUR WINGS!

"Look here she is. You should learn to be like her. Ask her how she studied and what she does in her free-time."

Two of my aunts, along with my mom, were pointing out to me and telling a kid cousin of mine.

     I was standing there and was

- Proud. Happy. Cool. Confident. King. Wow.

     Err. Wait. This was not the feel. Let's rewind a bit.

     I was standing there and was, well looking totally blank, with only one thing running on my mind, "Oh God, Not this. :-("

     The scenario took me some years backward, where i had been at similar scenes, but not as the indexed-model.

     Let me tell you a short story about a kid girl, who just had her knowledge of understanding things illuminated.

     Though she excelled well in academics and learnt and performed various arts, and however talented and top favourited, she was constantly put under comparisons and degrading comments by few people close to her. "You should be like A (Why names, when they are not the main characters)", "Learn from B", "You should follow the steps of C" and many such lines are what she heard on a daily basis.

     Did she mind? Nah, Not much. All she made out from the repeated lines was that she was no good when compared to A, B and C. And moreover, she was too young to recognize and be aware of the ill-effects of such comments that were gonna make a bigger impact in future.

     The worst turn that could happen then was her being sent to a new place and admitted in a new school and asked to reside with A, B and C.

     And to top it all, it was the start of her teenage, the age when the personality and character of a person goes through tests and modulations and changes.

     Well, nothing bad or seriously hard did happen, but then she had been already inflicted with the worse.

     Whatever that had happened, however silly it had been, whoever had done it for fun and wherever it had gotten into, she took the wrong side of things, felt depressed and dejected, made things worse for herself and ended up killing every single remaining spirit within her and never once let the frustrations out.

     

     All she felt for herself were low self-esteem, isolation and abstraction and depression.

     All she had for others were ego, jealousy and hatred. She felt her own self into pieces.

     Well, she went through a tough time and through a series of realizations and acceptance, before she became a much better person.

     Back to the starting point,

I don't understand why many parents and many others want their children to be a photocopy of some other successful person, without having even a glance at the uniqueness and potential both as a person living a wonder and as an artist with a different love and choice for colors making a masterpiece.

     They may not know the real impact of "comparisons" nor they would accept the existence of such an issue. 

     There is neither a solution to the wide-spread abstract issue, nor do i possess a power with which i could swish my wand and change the mentality of the people inflicting innocent kids or the negativity of the affected kids.

     Well, my aunt asked me to talk and "advise" my kid cousin. So they asked and so will they get.

     I called the kid aside and told her that she is an equally good person as me or anyone else and asked her to have a dream and work hard for it in her own way and feel the pleasure. After-all it is not the destination that gives meaning to life, but the journey that adds the color and flavour to life.

     Now for the suggestion. . . No, advice. . Rather, a request. . Or further more, An order . . Nah, Let's term it as a MISSION!

     You may not be the causal factor of such an issue, as i feel my readers are people who value individuality, but you can very well have a good hand in the effect of it.

     If you witness such a scene where you see a kid being degraded or criticised, Just tell the kid how much the world needs her own unique light by her own ways.

     You may also talk to the seniors about it, not letting themselves and others influence their wonderful kids.

     Well, As you would have easily guessed, it is obvious that the little girl in the story above is ME.

I narrated as third person, cos'. . No, Not cos' wanting to jump from behind you and shout "Boo! It's me!" and giving you a surprise. . . i could relate the character only to the person whom i had been before, not who am i now. I won't say that i had been a mess before, i would rather say that i am now a better person and will be a much better person.

I will pen down later about me becoming the architect, building myself at every step. But for now,

     Let's develop the positivity in air and pass it on to the world by joining hands!