Outgrowing environmental conditioning

Remember when we were told that all good kids would grow up to complete degrees with good grades, land a high-paying job, get married, have kids, buy properties, and save for the future?

Yeah, That nightmare, painted like a daydream… I used to believe that too!

Not just in India, even the Americans believed that and called it ‘’The American Dream”

The best part is that it was branded so well that Indians changed our dream to match theirs xD.

Sadly, the reality feels fragmented at different levels!

Everybody has a different definition of success, freedom, and commitment, and even the definition of ‘clarity’ is different.

If you asked my senior if he had clarity in his love life, He’d say ‘yes’ because no matter what happened, he was sure to marry his girlfriend in the future.

Now if you ask the same question to a teenager today, he’d say he wouldn’t plan his life around his love because anything could happen in the future, and that is his clarity.

I grew up in a singular reality where everybody had one definition of anything, but now I see different ambitions and unique dreams being justified. (for good, I guess)

This dynamic society in this century is questioning every blindly followed norm, in relationships, education, career, lifestyle, and everything else and so am I.

I’m unapologetically unorthodox. (aka stupid!)

9-5 doesn’t even exist anymore except in memories of our fathers going to work. 

You’re either a hustler who works more than that or a laid-back person who doesn’t bother much a sling as you are served enough and anything in between the two types, is thinning.

I’ve been programmed in a way my family and the closest circles were as a kid, I had the least control of those. 

But as I grow old, the more I experience, I question and notice I’m finding answers that suit my logic better than the pre-existed conditioning. 

So what influences these changes? Is it the same everywhere? 

I’d say it is the exposure — Through places you travel, people you associate with, trends you see, news you hear, and everything else. 

And most importantly ‘Exposure through the Internet’

But I’m someone who firmly believes that content is not the cultural setting if you ask me.

The Internet has brought different consensus for opinions from across the world, and incubated communities irrespective of the physical locations, It has normalized differing opinions and outgrown understanding beyond norms.

Now, through this exploration, I love my creative freedom, I wouldn’t want to stay at a job that doesn’t give me that space.

All I need is income with creative freedom. 

But the priorities of the previous generations (or a few of this generation) would be different, someone like me would look unstable in their eyes.  

Most people stay stuck because of the fear of judgment when they break out of that conditioning. 

But to me, I have outgrown all of those. And most people I know have!

The world’s changing, and for good in my opinion.

With the Internet, we basically get to whatever we want, however, we want, with whomever we want.

This collaboration wouldn’t have been possible without the mighty internet. We’ve influenced each other in a way that we cannot explain to everyone.

We’ve both broken the conditioning of never making friends with strangers that you meet on the internet.

I know countless others who are building multimillion-dollar companies with people who’ve they met on the internet and not even once in real life.

This break from the socially dictated conditioning is what makes the world so beautiful now.

I think withering off our environmental conditioning and better serving the logic makes it so much easier to LIVE a LIFE!

Co-authored with Madhumathi