Lemming or Individual?

 

The original plan was to write a blog every day in my actual six days vacation. Well, could know by now that original plans never work out!

On Sunday I went to one of my favorite restaurants to have lunch. My mood was not particularly good but also not too bad. I only brought a book to read cause afterward I wanted to take a walk by the sea. I had no intentions to write diary or a blog. As usual I chatted with the staff. Some of them I know since years and it is always a blast to feel welcomed by those amazing people. They always lift my mood.

While waiting for my lunch been served I tried to read a bit. But I was distracted by a family of four who came to the restaurant and sat right in front of me. A couple, maybe in their mid thirties, two children, a girl about 8 years and a boy about 4 or 5 years old. 

The parents sat next to each other, facing me with petrified faces. I tried to get back to my book but the girl was dancing around and counting aloud. That´s why I looked up again.

Mother, father and the boy were staring into their mobile phones. No one was saying a word, faces like stone. Only the girls was dancing around and counting. But soon later she also sat down and stared in her mobile.

A family of four, sitting in a restaurant, waiting for their lunches and every single one of them was staring into an electric device - without saying one word to each other!

I didn´t want to stare but I couldn´t help it.

How sad this was!

They got their meals, they ate in silence with faces like stones. A few times they had to say something to each other, which was even more sad. The couple couldn´t look each other in their eyes, the sentences were short, their mimic never changed. Every bite they swallowed was a torture to them. 

I really wanted to go back to my book and I told myself to stop thinking about them. Maybe they just had a bad day or something sad happened to them recently. Though my mind would not focus on the story in my book anymore. When I looked up again for the next time, they were gone!

So they must have eaten their lunch and gotten up the second they finished eating.

The picture of that stone faces is haunting me ever since. 

Fortunately this beautiful hot chocolate cat above lightened my mood extremely. Usually I am having a black americano and a dessert after my meal. But on Sunday I was too full to eat dessert. So I chose a hot chocolate instead. When this cute cate smirked at me the black clouds vanished.

It´s part of being a Highly Sensitive Person (HPS) to observe very carefully and to pick up on what is going on around me. 

I remember being on the tube in Vienna with my niece once. While we were chatting to each other I pointed out some outstanding things happening around us. Something funny, a cute baby or an interesting person. At one point she stared at me with huge eyes:
"Why are you able to see all of this while talking to me?"

Well, that´s "the curse" of being a HSP.

I didn´t know the real reason when I was with my niece on that tube in Vienna then. 

Today I do, Thank God! 

But still it is very difficult to explain what is going on. How to explain what is going on in a HSP´s mind every second? 

The shortest way is: A HSP is taking everything in - totally unfiltered. EVERYTHING reaches my mind, EVERYTHING has to be thought through. 

Is that stress? Oh, you have no idea!!

Cause it is not only what I see, hear, smell or taste ... it is also what I feel about.  
Every other "normal" person might have seen that family on Sunday as well. But after maybe 20 seconds they would have only been people in the background. 

While today, Tuesday, they are still bothering me a big deal. 

That´s why I so easily get angry about people. Because they affect me so much. 

Yes, of course, also the positive things affect me a lot. And for that I am immensely grateful! But, as you might know yourself, usually the negative things stay longer with us than the positive ones.

Since Sunday I try to fit that unpleasant situation into a thought I had recently. 

Due to important lectures I had in the last couple of months I am able to shift my thinking into a more healthy way for myself.

The question: "Why are people like that?" made me crazy for a long time. 

Today I am aware of every person, every behavior, has its justification in the evolution. This journey we are on is always and in the first place a personal journey. So everybody is exactly where he / she needs to be on his / her personal journey. 

Plus, our personal journeys are matching the Universal Journey, the journey of mankind in general. 

We might not understand the goal behind it, but we should trust into nothing is wasted, nothing happens without a good reason. Mankind has to go through everything we are going through. We would not learn all the necessary parts otherwise. 

We are not to change those necessary circumstances. 

We are to learn and to grow. 

We are in power of how much we want to learn and how fast we want to grow!

Always.

Everyone.

So recently this thought formed itself clearly in my mind:

The most important thing is to be authentic at all time. Only when our goal is to be as authentic as possible we have the chance to develop our full potential. 

Since mankind is on this planet people in power knew that very well. This is why their goal was and is to control us as much as possible.

We were / are controlled by religion, by family structures, by society, by governments, by media, by advertisement, etc. 

I believe nowadays this is shown more than ever!

There are the ones who control us and there are the ones who want to be controlled.

Yes, I mean it, when I say: WANT to be controlled. And most of us WANT to be controlled. 

Why?

Because it is so much easier to be controlled. If there is someone or something controlling you, you don´t have to think and act independently. 

How many people live in a family structure where they suffer regularly? 

How many people are part of a society in which they feel unwell and manipulated?

How many people follow the rules of their religion without thinking if the rules are good or bad?

How many people wear expensive branded clothes, shoes and bags because society make them believe they are cooler when they do so?

How many people buy products advertisement made them believe they need?

How many people spend a monthly salary on a smart phone every single year? 

How many young girls are disfiguring themselves right now because media convince them an unnatural huge upper lip is the new beauty feature?

How many people put chemical shit on or in their body because everyone does it? 

How many people do and buy what everyone else does, no matter if its good for them or not? 

It is so much easier to buy sneakers with three stripes or a swoosh and feel like belonging to society than: 

be aware of those sneakers are produced in Vietnam most likely by children or people who work in slavery 

be aware of the margin is about 300 %  - only because of the three stripes or the swoosh - NOT because of great materials or fair trade. (I´ve worked in a sport shop and I do know what those branded items cost in production!) 

It is so much easier to follow the crowd than to be authentic and back up this authenticity. 

Does that group behavior make us happier?
Well, look into the faces of people ... do they look happy?

While having those thoughts I received another quote on Facebook which matched them so well: 

For a very long time of my life I was sad to not fit into any crowd. Today I am proud of it!

The real and fulfilling goal is NOT to fit into any crowd.

The real and fulfilling goal is to be authentic and find my own ways and my purpose in life. 

Now, imagine every single person would focus on being authentic and on her / his own wellbeing first. 

And please don´t get me wrong. I am fully aware of me always living in a crowd. I am part of mankind, I am part of a race, I am part of a country, of a city, of a working environment, etc. 

But inside those crowds I am an unique individual with my own authenticity, with my own believing.  

I stand behind myself.

I back myself up.

Not always easy, but it makes me happy and proud of myself! 

How great would it be to live in a world of authentic people who are happy and proud of themselves?