Conformity and Non... A Fork in the Road of Life.

From the day we are born, we are taught to conform. Sometimes we conform for practical reasons; we all learn the same language, use the same numerals for mathematics, etc. Other times we conform for social reasons; school kids wear the same clothes as their friends, listen to the same type of music, etc. As we get older and our conception of the world grows from the bars of our crib to the eternal expanse of the universe, we find there are seemingly infinite possibilities for us in this life, and the prospect of non-conformity grows deeper in our hearts. Each and every one of us wants to be something special; a superhero, the inventor of a wondrous machine, first man on Mars, President of the United States of America, and so on. With the passage of time, we learn that men cannot fly or see through walls (or at least so we’ve come to believe), only a handful out of the billions of beings every born will be President, only one man can ever be the first man on Mars; so then what for the rest of us? Shall we simply be a worker bee or a soldier ant? Where is our place in this world, what is our destiny for life, what greatness shall we inherit? Perhaps, however, these goals do not lie in the world beyond the barrier of electrons separating our flesh from the air. Perhaps instead, there is greatness in each and every one of us, and the problem is simply that too many of us choose to look outward rather than inward. For it is safer to aspire to be something someone else already has been; knowing it is acceptable and loved, than to look inside and become something unique and untested.