Restoring my soul.

That dear friends is the real question of the era.  How important is it to conform to societal norms? Is it as important to “follow your dream” or “find yourself” as it is to follow the crowd and blend in?

The question comes to mind today due to the struggle my youngest (14yearold) son is having at his “cookie cutter producing” school.  All must look exactly the same, they must study the same and they must all have the same learning ability as each other. Don’t dare stray outside the box or your individuality will be wiped out with a succession of time -outs and detentions that will bore you into conforming.

Our Public education system is not designed to create individuals with their own beliefs and own thoughts.  It doesn’t even fully prepare the non-academic minded kids for the real world.  It trains them on what to think not how to think. whilst Principal’s stand at Awards nights beseeching the kids to continue their path to greatness and follow their dreams.  Ever noticed though the kids at awards nights are the ones that fit the mold- they are rarely the artists, the musicians, the dancers or the dreamers.  School Awards nights are made for the academic, conformist kids, we go and applaud and say well done and feel very proud if it’s our child on stage.  But what of the dreamers, the artists; where does their reward come from?

So are our children destined to suffer the bane of conformity until their mid 40’s like we were?  Do we truly believe that each person is their own self and has their own path to lead or does that only apply after they have the 9-5 job and the 2.4 kids and then they can dream their own dream?

In the world of social media and teenagers conformity is survival – dare to be different and become the prey of the “mean kids” and even to an extent “mean teachers”.  In the adult world this is true as well.  A few brave souls dare to break away from the pack and live their truth, they leave the rest of us behind living our middle class existence in our middle class conformity, so we can point our finger at them and laugh because they are so different.  We don’t even care that they are hugely successful or extremely happy, how dare they break the mold and be different to us?  They will be torn down by all of us they left behind, tall poppy syndrome is a sport to us Aussie’s and it needs to be put to rest.

It’s time for the non-conformists to be noticed, it’s time the artists and dreamers were recognised with awards nights of their own.  It is time to embrace the individuals and applaud their accomplishments and it’s time to stop cutting them down.