Hey reader,

Having a wedding in the family is itself a rollercoaster ride. Not just for one day but for months, and add some pandemic jerks, you get even more interesting ride. Though it is really a lot of fun, happiness, joy, laughter, intentional teases with the bride-groom and most importantly the tantrums. 😉

A wedding is always incomplete with these ingredients, opinions and judgements. The khus-pus on the corner, yes that one! And in all these, I would personally like to salute and express my greatest empathy with the daughters, sisters or in general bride, to-be-bride or the bride-maids. We, boys, actually can’t understand the plethora of opinions, suggestions and judgements that a girl has to listen from family, friends, society and what not! A simple example, if a girl is healthy around her wedding, then why didn’t you try some weight loss sessions or gyms, etc.? and if a healthy girl gets slim, oh child you look so weak now, your dark circles have grown up or some can even say, oh child you lost the glow with weight. This is the simplest example I could tell, and if any girl is reading this out, I know you will be knowing of much more relatable examples. Don’t forget to share them down in comments. (At least we boys would understand some of the pain you all go through!)

A tiger doesn’t lose sleep over the opinion of sheep.

Honestly, if you think that this happens with just one generation of people (say our parents’ generation or older) then, you would actually be wrong. The forms of giving an opinion or suggestion or passing on a judgement might differ but a change in formation won’t actually change the impression, right? Recently, one of my favourite go-to people did something similar. It was about the timing of the wedding. She said why delayed.. weddings at these times are best (here the times are pandemic times where no closed one would be able to join in the celebration, all the dreams of bride-groom and families would be compromised and just for the sake of fewer people, fewer comments and less fun, it will be best). Although, she said in a very polite way as always, sometimes the opinions are not actually required. So, even if you change the formation, the impressions still stay.

Adding to it, another person said about my music and my music taste as below:

I believe, I already talked much about my taste in music in the previous blog, so I don’t really need to tell you about it again. After this happened, I actually had a good laugh, how people unaware of the story behind would just make assumptions and pass on the judgements, and happily approve it. 🙂

Sometimes, you do things for others, like creating a cover of someone’s favourite song and gifting them on their birthday. So was this cover, for someone in the family, anyhow sometimes we should allow few messed-up things as is!

Before I talk about what can be done if someone gets into such a situation, we should better talk about the consequences. What if, these are not handled properly?

• Someone didn’t approve your beauty, so you start believing it and feel sad or depressed.
• Someone didn’t approve your looks, so you start believing you don’t look good and start losing confidence in your body language.
• Someone didn’t approve your work, so you start feeling useless, and instead of improving, decide to wrap up, based out on someone’s remark, and end up missing out something big in the life afterwards.
• Someone didn’t understand your worth, and you start doubting your existence in the middle of a chaotic beautiful life.
• And it keeps going…

At this point, it reminds me to share a beautiful message I found in one of my friend’s WhatsApp About. It says:

Dare to colour your world, your way!

Beautiful and strong, isn’t it?

Now what we can actually do in such scenarios? Can this be fixed in society? Absolutely not. It’s more of in human nature now, and even us would have judged someone, passed our opinion to someone required or not. So it can not be actually fixed in the society itself, although how to live with it is something that can be learned, and here I would like to share another great thought from one of my all-time favourites himself.

Steven Wilson during his interview on To The Bone album:

Interviewer: To the Bone has generated polarized reactions from your existing fan base. What do you make of the conversations occurring?
Steven : I’m aware of the reaction from the fan base as being quite controversial and mixed, but I take that as a very positive thing. I never look at social media postings. I’ve never been particularly interested in that stuff. One of the problems with putting human beings together on the Internet is that you get people who become very fond of their own voice and enamored with their own opinions. It’s a very modern thing I try to avoid. I haven’t read a single comment to be honest. I have people tell me when something is happening on Facebook, but that feedback isn’t relevant to me. It’s a very 21st-Century thing to be able to get feedback directly from fans. During the golden era of pop and rock from the ‘60s through the ‘80s, musicians didn’t have that kind of connection to fans. They never really knew what fans thought about their music. I prefer to maintain a similar kind of state.

Interviewer: You do have a strong presence across social media, despite the song “Pariah” having a line in it that goes “I’m tired of Facebook.”
Steven: I’m not anti-social media. I do use it, of course. In some ways, social media is amazing. The idea that I can get information to my fan base so quickly, so easily and for free is incredible, whether that’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube. The downside is the unbelievable amount of noise and bullshit. There’s something about social media that stimulates the need to share everything, no matter how banal or trivial, with the rest of the world. Also, the fact that you can be very negative, critical and vitriolic towards other people from a position of complete anonymity taps into all the worst aspects of human nature. You can get bogged down in that world and it can become very depressing, very quickly. You can also become addicted. Social media stimulates an obsessive side of your personality. It can also be an incredible waste of time. It’s an unbelievable way to waste hours going through this pointless rhetoric. That line in the song is to a degree, autobiographical. I am tired of Facebook. I’m tired of everyone being a journalist and a critic. I wish I could tune out the whole world of social media, but I can’t because it’s very useful from a professional perspective.

If I share my personal recommendations:

• Do not try to dodge or defend any judgement. Accept it with an open heart and smile. The matter gets closed there-only.
• Do not take it so seriously. A song that perfectly suggests why not to think about it: “Kuch to log kahenge.. logo ka kaam hai kehna! “ (People will say something.. It is the job of people to say)
• We should be aware of the people whose opinions are in the best interest to us and whose not. Not everything or everyone matters!

“Care about people’s approval, and you will always be their prisoner.”

Lao Tzu

So until the next time, cheer up and let people say what they want to, listening or replying is always with us!

Take Care!
– Navneet