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How much have other people's opinion shaped you? How far will you let them affect the way you live your life?
How much have other people’s opinion shaped you? How far will you let them affect the way you live your life?
I have always been very sensitive to people’s opinion, and I’ve always judged myself after listening to people’s opinion on me. While the good ones left me elated for days, the bad ones made me question myself.
It took me a long time to realise that an opinion is just one person’s vague idea of someone or something based on their personal experiences. It has nothing to do with the truth of my reality.
Very recently I had read a story about a woman who looked out of her window and saw her neighbours hanging dirty laundry to dry. She complained about this to her husband every day, until one day she cleaned her window. When she looked out through the clean window she realised that her neighbour’s clothes had always been clean, it was her window that needed cleaning.
I have judged myself the harshest after I took on the role of a new mother. Here is my experience as a working mother, and how I let other people push me around.
I have been working in the corporate sector ever since I passed out of college, and been financially independent. Quite naturally after I held the bundle of joy in my arms, I decided impulsively that I would halt my world for her happiness.
So, I spent blissful moments of motherhood just being with my daughter, until one fine day, some one said to me, “Why did you study so hard in the best colleges and gain a corporate experience? Do you mean to throw it all away?”
This opinion made me think. While it broke my heart to even leave my child for a moment, something inside me kept asking – ‘Do you really mean to throw it all away?
Following this, I decided that I would leave my daughter in day care for a full day or with a nanny and join back the workforce. I have attended numerous interviews while taking along my baby in a pram and the nanny following behind me. With every interview I left a piece of my heart back with my chuckling baby who played outside. But the question “Are you going to throw everything away?” remained.
I did bag a couple of jobs.
When I shared my experience of job hunting to people around me, someone again said – “Are you going to leave your infant with a nanny? Is your career really more important than your child’s welfare?”
So, of course I decided that my career was actually not more important. I started to approach various companies that would hire me as a consultant writer. This would give me the flexibility to be at home and keep working at my own pace.
I shared the happy news with the people around me. Again someone said, “What’s the point of working so hard for peanuts when you can get a REAL job and earn ten times the same amount like you did before?”
Other people’s opinion is their idea about something based on their experiences.
While I changed directions listening to people’s opinion, I had never once considered what I really wanted. And I have since realised that every woman has a different life, different choice, different priorities. Based on their situation in life, every single woman is doing what she can do best.
While there are women who would want to work, they may lack the necessary support back at home needed to balance home and work. Then there are those who want to be with their baby every single moment, but need to work to make ends meet. There are still others who might find themselves in a situation where they do not find anything that would work for them.
I have felt insufficient every time I heard a judgement about my choice. But I realise now I should have just asked the ‘people with opinion’ to clean their window, rather than trade my heart’s whispers for their approval.
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A Social Media Content Writer by profession. A writer by heart. A genuine foodie. Simple by nature. Love to read, create paintings and cook. Have impossible dreams. At the moment, engaged in making those dreams read more...
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Women today don’t want to be in a partnership that complicates their lives further. They need an equal partner with whom they can figure out life as a team, playing by each other’s strengths.
We all are familiar with that one annoying aunty who is more interested in our marital status than in the dessert counter at a wedding. But these aunties have somehow become obsolete now. Now they are replaced by men we have in our lives. Friends, family, and even work colleagues. It’s the men who are worried about why we are not saying yes to one among their clans. What is wrong with us? Aren’t we scared of dying alone? Like them?
A recent interaction with a guy friend of mine turned sour when he lectured me about how I would regret not getting married at the right time. He lectured that every event in our lives needs to be completed within a certain timeframe set by society else we are doomed. I wasn’t angry. I was just disappointed to realize that annoying aunties are rapidly doubling in our society. And they don’t just appear at weddings or family functions anymore. They are everywhere. They are the real pandemic.
Let’s examine this a little closer.
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