Beyond definitions

Beyond definitions

August 2011

By Megha Bajaj

Why strive to fit into others’ definitions of us?

Recently I had gone for an evening trek with a big, happy group of people. An adventure lover who feels at home in the mountains, I nonetheless found the scaling heights and abrupt falls extremely unnerving. At one particularly ‘skiddy’ part I just lost it and held onto a friend’s hand and requested him to take me through. He did. However, I could hear a disgusted snort from behind.

When we finally reached, the person who had expressed his discontentment came forth and said, “You write such inspiring articles for magazines; how come you can’t deal with a trek?” The trek had truly been a disaster – both my back and confidence had taken a severe beating.

That night, snug and warm in my bed, I was still feeling quite low. I felt I had failed to be an inspiration to someone who had looked up to me. Arun, my husband, asked me what was wrong. I didn’t want to tell him because Arun has these single-line solutions to all my problems that leave me feeling extremely dissatisfied. However, he kept pressing till I shared. As always, Arun was ready. He said, “Why are you allowing his definition of you – good or bad – to affect you? It’s his definition. He needs to deal with it, not you.” With that, he patted my head and went off to sleep. Wow, for once Arun’s solution was like a much-needed tonic rather than an unasked-for irritant.

One of the worst things all of us do in life is try to fit others’ definition of us… good or bad! “The shy girl…” “The effortless extrovert…” “The topper…” “The rebel…” “Fatty…” oh…oh…we have all been

labelled, haven’t we? The scary part is that most of us hang on to others’ definitions of us for a lifetime! It gets worse: the person who defined us was probably not an authority figure. Somebody told me when I was eight that I wasn’t good at art, and today almost 20 years later, I still believe it. That somebody was my best friend from third standard!!!

My guru says, “In the entirety of this Universe there has never been anyone like you – and there will never be anyone like you.” If I am so deliciously unique – why am I constantly trying to fit into others’ definition of me? If someone thinks I am an angel – that’s their tag of me – I don’t need to be uncharacteristically good. If someone thinks I am not good enough – again that’s their issue – I have to grow at the pace that I have to grow. Evolution cannot be forced…

I don’t want to live my life out of others’ definitions anymore. In fact, I don’t want to define myself at all. I am a little this, a little that…just like you. And I believe when we die God won’t ask us why we didn’t do this, or that – but there is one question that He will surely ask: Why didn’t you live as YOU?