Conformity is Deformity

  "A habit is something you can do without thinking - which is why most of us have so many of them."
Frank Howard Clark

     It’s another Monday; it’s time for this week’s comfort challenge.  But before we get to that, let me talk about a trend that’s been bugging me.  We’ve all been pretty much guilty of it.  “Just agreeing” happens all the time.  Why do we agree with something?  Most of the time we don’t care enough about it to look any further into it, sometimes it’s the most “desirable” answer and we like it, then there’s just agreeing or accepting because we think someone else is more qualified than we are.  Sometimes light conformity is good, like when its opinion based, but like I said light.  That doesn’t mean act like a passive-aggressive loser, just to respect understand (or at least try to…) other people’s difference.  I’m going to share a story with all of you that I received in an email from one of my uncles overseas.

(A little girl was watching her mother prepare a fish for dinner. Her mother cut the head and tail off the fish and then placed it into a baking pan. The little girl asked her mother why she cut the head and tail off the fish. Her mother thought for a while and then said, "I've always done it that way - that's how grandma did it."

The girl was not satisfied with the answer, and went to visit her grandma to find out why she cut the head and tail off the fish before baking it.

Grandma thought for a while and replied, "I don't know. My mother always did it that way."
So the little girl and the grandma went to visit great grandma to find ask if she knew the answer.

Great grandma thought for a while and said, “Because my Grandma told once that the baking pan was too small to fit in the whole fish”.)

     I’m sure this isn’t the first time some of you have heard this story, it’s pretty popular around the net.  But let’s think about it for a second.  We shouldn’t let any belief system or assumption get the best of us.  We must keep search for answers, keep moving forward.  Otherwise, we’ll fall into lazy habits of thinking and neglect some important issues dealing with really important things that will have a dramatic effect on our life.  Even the little things that we neglect will add up over time.  There are times where we must question our parents, spouse, peers, teachers, or government to understand what will be affecting our lives, maybe not right away, but in the future.  Remember my formula in the last posting, “Short term discomfort for long term success/pleasure”.  I like to keep that in mind when I go about anything and get a little too impatient.  I made my own wallpaper in Photoshop and put that formula in the dead-center of it to remind myself whenever I catch the fear from discomfort creeping up on me. 

     No one likes to answer questions because they have to be responsible for their answer and if the question is promotes thought, watch out, up goes their security blanket and out comes their animosity.  The key is to ask with finesse, that’s the light “conformity I was talking about earlier.  Let’s call it adaptability for now.  If you come off as threatening or even attacking them, then you won’t get a desirable answer.  People don’t like to be thought of as “different” so they just go along with the crowd.  That’s the reason so many people fear public speaking.  Because public speaking causes you to stand out and be judged by others.  In order to get over that, we must get use to feeling uncomfortable.  We have to put embarrassment aside and move on.  Consider this for example.  You’re walking down the street and you see a neighbor that you haven’t seen in a while and you both make eye contact.  You both wave and now begin to move towards each other.  When you get close, you say “hi” and stick your hand out for a friendly handshake, but the neighbor keeps walking past you and completely ignores you.  At that point, some funky things might start going on in your head, like anger, confusion, rejection, and embarrassment.  The two things that us as human beings hate the most are confusion and rejection.  It slaps the Hell out of us!  Now you can either be a product of your emotions and end up reacting to the situation or you can give it a little thought and come to your own rational actions.  If you choose to let it affect you that much, then next time you might just ignore your neighbor all together and possible leave him as the victim of confusion and rejection.  Why?  Is it because YOU ARE the one afraid of rejection and embarrassment?  If you can think about it rationally, then you will probably realize that you have lost nothing by what has happened, your mind is playing tricks on you and you’re conforming to some lazy environmental conditioning.

     A good habit to get into is for us to use our heads more.  It may feel annoying to constantly brainstorm, but like any habit, it’s uncomfortable and takes some time getting use to, but once developed, it will help tremendously.  Remember “Short term discomfort for long term success/pleasure” Put forth the effort and you’ll get back desirable results.  Now please note that this doesn’t mean to disagree with everything you hear as well.  Mindlessly disagreeing is just as bad as mindlessly agreeing.  If you don’t know, say “I don’t know”, or ask some questions.

This week’s comfort challenge:  Try to talk to the most attractive person of the opposite sex that you can find everyday of this week, even if it’s small talk.  Try to get at least two phone numbers this week.  It’s fine if you don’t get them, as long as you asked, but DON’T half-ass it just to get it over with, or else it won’t count.  Good luck everyone!