The problem with our Society.
Being a middle class Indian, I've observed few pattern with the Indian society.
"Even smart, critical thinkers go along with many of society’s truths, knowing deep down they are lies."
Society has contributed to the myth that being successful is equal to happiness. An average person spends a major part of his life to gain social validation and attaining materialistic things. Only to realise that he was following mirage of happiness.
“I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace.” — Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
They are technically programmed to judge others on objective criteria of success. Such as rewarding the end result and not giving any consideration to the efforts of the person. This has lead to general decline of morality as everyone wants to achieve success in societal terms without any regard for the process to gain social validation. Genuine efforts are not received well if they do not translate into some form of worldly success.
This narrow conception of success by society has also curbed the risk taking abilities in orthodox societies like India. People want to tread on the well established paths like enginnering or government job, rather then trying for a startup or becoming an artist. People are ready to go to any extent to get the end result resulting in lots of cases of suicide and depression if the end result is not met with their expectations.
Human beings are a funny species. We assign value to things and naively assume once we accomplish or get these things, we can be happy. We have all fallen prey to this. How many times have we told ourselves we’ll be happy if we get a teensy bit more money? If we get a few extra points on our exams? If we finally get that girlfriend we’ve been looking for all our lives? If we shed a few more pounds at the gym? But if that’s all it was to be happy, we should’ve been there already, right? The truth is, maybe if we stop looking at the results and fall in love with the process, we’ll be better off. I am not saying that making money or having a girlfriend will not give happiness. It will. But that happiness will never be long-lasting and chasing these things will only end in us causing ourselves more suffering. It is an endless vicious cycle.
Society will force you to become a mediocre by directing you to live in conformity with the societal norms and standards. It will gradually curb your risk taking abilities and without realising you will become a social animal with his individuality submerged within the society.
Society sets certain standard to follow. Like judging the worth of a male person by his earning and a female by her looks. All your other qualities are sidelined as they become irrelevant.Patriarchy is not just bad for women, it also imposes certain standard and behaviour over men. Males are supposed to suppress their emotional side. They suffer from performance pressure both in and out of the house. They have to give up on their dreams to take responsibility aligned with social goals.
Societal norms and values play major role in what you are going to do with your life. For eg. Trying for government job in India. This goal oriented approach towards education and life is justified in the society. Rather the Focus should be on character building and ethics.
All these things lead to various mental health issues in the population like depression and suicide. The collective mentality curbs individual freedom. Society needs to be more empathetic towards those who choose different paths and vulnerable. It is made for the individual not vice versa.
This is the reason why our generation is so unhappy.Explained simply by Tyler durden in fight club:
We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.
Our generation is living the trap. Trap formed by the society of some imaginary happiness in being aligned to societal values and norms. Since, majority of the population is always attracted towards mediocrity and superficiality offered by the society they will always stay far from knowing the reason behind their discontentment. And, end up being a part of the trap.
"The price of admission to society is compliance. The result is mediocrity.”
Capitalism and consumerism will provide a temporary respite from this quest but the happiness derived from material things dissipates quickly. The hypocrisy of this society is not realised untill we achieve the goals set by it, and that so called sucess fail to make us happy.
