Principles, Not Patterns
In order to become better, or become like our role model, we try to imitate their habits, their way of living, speaking and majorly their way of being. In our attempt to become like them, we generally copy things which has nothing to do with their success.
Like I remember, in my college, all toppers would have messy rooms, whereas I had my room in order. So I thought, this would be a trait of a topper. As a result, I would keep my room messy.
This isn’t just about me. Lower castes in past have tried to imitate higher caste people so that they could relate to them and feel more acceptable, through process called Sanskritization.
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Similarly, in order to modernize, we adopted Westernization, often treating it as simply copying the West to become a more developed and better country. In the wake of becoming a clone, we risk becoming clowns.
So how do we know what to copy and what to discard ?
Instead of copying habits blindly, we should try to understand the underlying idea behind a habit, and if we can achieve it through our own method — one that comes naturally to us and makes us feel happy and confident — we should take that path or make our own, just like the idea in the poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, which emphasizes choosing the road less taken rather than following the crowd.
After all, life is meant for experimentation — trying, failing, learning, and rebuilding ourselves along the way. Not every attempt will succeed, and not every path will be clear, but each experience shapes our understanding of what truly works for us. So go ahead — experiment, take risks, and live life on your own terms, not as a copy of someone else’s story but as an original of your own.
