Skip to main content

Are We Sheep, Snowflakes, or Both?

"Human beings are not like sheep, and even sheep are not indistinguishably alike" - Mill

I got lost on the way to adulthood. It is easy to get lost in this world. To drown in a sea of facts and statistics. To get beaten over the head with estranged opinions. To get into quarrels over our views on religion, violence, sex, education, morality, this and that, each person trying to prove that he is right, each person trying to demean the other because of their insatiable need for always being right. Although it would take some god to determine whether humanity is making the right decisions or not, one can always decide what is best for himself. 

But it's easy to get swayed.

I've wanted to be a teacher ever since I was in elementary school. But in university I panicked. I was told that the job market for teaching sucks, that English majors will never amount to anything, and that I am not actually as special or smart as thought I was because everyone is a unique snowflake in our liberal society; yet every snowflake looks the same when it has been trampled on and lost in a heap of snow. So there I was, suffering a quarter life crisis, asking questions about God and the universe when all I really needed to know was, can I be a good teacher?

I ended up striving to get into law school (because law= money and success?) but my heart was never truly in it. Maybe it will be one day. But not now. I then suffered a secondary, and more extreme, life crisis where I thought that I should switch my major to computer programming (which is insane considering I never took any interest in it, and I also hate reading text off of screens. Minor setbacks). But in the end, it is teaching that brings purpose to my life, and so I am now pursuing being an ESL teacher. While this does not sound glamorous, I could not care less, for society is constructed of individual beings with sheep-like mentality. I would rather be outside of the box than to be confined to a boxed pen.

It is the gift of free choice that makes life worth living. Leaving this gift unopened is a huge waste, for with each passing year we forget about that gift, and eventually opening the gift will seem more terrifying than living in perpetual blindness. Which is why we have the faculties to make individual choices that best serve our own purpose. Don't listen to the other sheep. The farmer, your parents, your god, statistics, books, philosophers, friends... they are not your masters and you are not their slave. You are your own master. Do what makes you happy, and believe that you are special, because even a heap of snow would not be able to shine in the sunlight if it was not constructed of unique snowflakes.


Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Women: Living Contradictions

What does society want? For women to achieve impossible standards (and, by the way, it is NOT possible to achieve something that is impossible). Society wants us to be living contradictions...cabbage heads on stilts... airhead rocket scientists. Society wants us to be things that don't even exist in fiction, but only in the glossy pages of a Cosmopolitan magazine (look at me! I'm so skinny! So happy! Sexy all the time!). As I heard said many times before, "even Victoria's Secret models don't look like Victoria's Secret models." The way the proportions are warped, each pimple bleached, each hair trimmed down to pre-pubescence, toes and fingers without a scar, and the face angelic and so happy... it makes me sick. It makes me sick because of the contradictions, because women are expected to: Be sexy but not slutty Be innocent but not prude Be virgins but also fantastic lovers Be independent but submissive Be good mothers but maintain careers Be...
6 comments
Read more

The Flood

Sometimes I feel like My insides are flooding Threatening to spill out And clog glutters in the street With all my unsatisfied ambition Sometimes I want to drown In a soup of grey water To just forget it all And become one with the tunnels, Streets, and people of the city Their shoes tracking dirt From one train station to the next Let the rain water drain it all Cleanse it all The grief and the dissatisfaction The mundanity and the boredom Of the occassional commute Let the flood take me Take us To a train station that hasn't been built yet On tracks that don't yet exist Far, far away In the meadows Where the soil can finally soak up All the grey unwanted rain
Post a Comment
Read more

Happiness is Pink Jellybeans

Happiness is jumping in a pool of pink jellybeans Feeling the cool candy on my skin Happiness is enjoying the pleasures of life Without worrying about confessing my sins Whoever said that we are gluttons For biting juicy pears on the beach Must never have felt the sand in their toes They must have placed their own soul out of reach And what about greed? It's not all that bad To bury a pile of chestnuts for the spring All animals do it, so why shouldn't we? If it's greedy to love yourself, let it be Lust is the one that makes pastors blush Yet it's one of the greatest joys in the body A kiss and a dance, laughter and romance Why did we ever label this happiness as naughty? Have you ever seen a cat sad when it naps? It is okay to sometimes be lazy The body needs rest as does the mind Or the world will set fire from the crazy If happiness is a sin, then let me smile in hell Looking up at the do-gooders above For to live is to err, to cry, and to sing Happiness is pink jell...
Post a Comment
Read more