The Influence of other People

People affect our thinking

I was standing near a picket fence that surrounded a lake. Resting my back against the wooden slat, I was waiting for something to happen, an unveiling that shall amortize the rustling of the dissonant voice of thoughts.

When people carrying a nondescript visage, merely putter around on WhatsApp and Instagram, shower insincere comments, or rib each other perversely with their arsenal of sugar-coated words, I, midst the hodgepodge, manage to meekly hone my lackluster art, tailor my frugal ways, parrot some tongue-in-cheek gags, take dry-runs of every social performance and try to loosen the rein of unjust personal barriers.

But further, there are sharp-edged people who look with an icy glint, mouth off livid remarks, or stir the mind with casual but contemptuous badgering and tongue lashing, I feel debilitated and start looking for a palliative source to smoothen the wound, a medic to repair my injuries.

My healers are those people who embolden my spirit, buoy me above my problems, vouch for me at the times of difficulty. For instance, when my friend awed me by praising my fiction story, I wondered how small complements can make wonders in any struggler’s life. But isn’t it another form of dependency where someone else is controlling your state of feeling?

In the dormitory of life, you get to have a bittersweet staccato of experiences. Sometimes, you need to trot down the proverbial road, and sometimes, scurry from place to place in the ranch house when the network gets spotty. Sometimes, you have to decide by the visceral feeling. But searching for the words of appreciation from outside would not lead anywhere. Because, you can be pegged to the highest position or relegated to an oddball over the course of time, which is the result of mix and match of opinions from various kinds of people. Under such circumstances, if you rely on only one person that is you, there will be no stopping but learning.

If the perception about yourself is a garb that you wear, don’t let the lapel of your tweed jacket droop over a few drops of coffee on the cuff.