Option 1: Living a Day of Nonconformity
One of the essential aspects of humans is that we are societal beings. However, in order to fit in and belong to a society, there are certain rules that one must handle in one way or another, mainly obeying. Nevertheless, an interesting practice invites people to shed these masks for twenty-four hours in order to let their true, authentic self come out. After going through with this exercise, I saw that it was interesting, yet it did not leave any grand, significant life lessons, as I thought it would.
Basically, I did many things that I usually do not do. My authenticity had more to do with norms than the way I treat people. From the beginning of the experiment I saw that there were some activities where I conformed to social norms, yet that were important because of other reasons, as well.
For example, the authentic me would never have thought about saying good day to people around me. Nevertheless, I find that this is very helpful, not just in terms of social relationships with others, which it helps in, but also so as to make your own day brighter. I did not say good day to the people around me, and I felt that I should. This was probably in part because of societal norms, but I also feel that it is an easy way to cheep up one’s own day and that of others.
Other people did not care much about my inconformity. As a whole, their reaction was basically amusement, shock or intrigue because of my actions, such as when I skipped class to go to the park. Nevertheless, I believe this was not exactly due to the action itself, but because they saw me behaving in an unusual way.
Even though I was happy during this day, I do not think that it would be a viable way of living. For example, I missed the majority of my classes today, which means that I will have to learn the information by myself if I want to gain knowledge, something that is more difficult than learning in a classroom. Furthermore, going out at night is not feasible either, both in economic terms and health ones.
I think that it is nice to let the standards go once in a while, yet not sustain them in this fashion. The costs outweigh the benefits in this case, because rules are there for a reason. This may be societal norms for living with one another in a more harmonious manner, or creating habits to do things one may not generally want to.
I think that it is important to achieve a balance between non-conformity and sticking by the rules. Society is there as a type of cheat sheet for those too lazy to figure out by themselves the ways to treat others and behave. Their function is to regulate interactions through a way that works the majority of the time. I believe I had already achieved a certain balance between these two modes of being, so I do not really think that in a month from now this exercise will have really changed me.
In conclusion, even though I found the activity interesting, it is not something that I think would be beneficial to do every day of one’s life. I believe that I had already found an adequate balance between the norms and my authentic self, so this just let to behavior that was fun, yet that will probably be negative in the long run. Consequently, I do not believe that it will leave a lasting impression on me in the long run. Being authentic is nice, but it is not all it is cracked up to be.
9:53 woke up (later than usual)
Brushing teeth: good societal norm. Authentic would do it because it is good (and not smelly)
Why put on clothes?
Get to class super late. Missed one class. Not sure I like this.
Talked out of turn and professor got mad
Left class in middle to go to park. Class was boring
Talked nicely to crush. Like it. Got number.
Ate unhealthy food. Yummy.
Why am I doing this? This activity in unauthentic. Oh, well. Should finish.
Went out to drink with friends. Awesome. Laughed a lot.
Went to be without brushing teeth. (Don’t really care now)
