What am I?

A few months ago I was volunteering in my neighborhood resident committee for a block party. Usually there is an Art Competition for children in such a party to engage all the children who accompany their parents. They were provided with sheets of art paper having scenery with pictures of birds, and crayons. They were given one hour to colour them and then those were to be judged to give prizes to the best three. I was one of the judges so I got a chance to see these coloured sheets closely. I was amused to see that the so-called crow looked like a pigeon, and pigeon looked like a parrot in shape. In some cases, clouds had taken the shape of trees, while trees resembled clouds. When the function was over, and I got a chance to interact with some participants, I asked one child, why the birds looked so different, even though he knew how a crow looked like. He told shyly that when he was colouring the picture, some colour came out, and to smoothen it, he broadened the outline, and hence the shape changed.

This set me thinking about our own selves. Haven't we become like the finished pictures of these children? If we look at ourselves, our personality, closely, we find that we have taken the shape of what is expected from us. Originally we were born with certain traits and qualities. As we were growing up, depending on our childhood experiences, parents' beliefs and teachers' expectations, we started behaving in a certain way. Later on, societal norms influenced us further, and we became what we are today.

So what am I really? I am a representation of all my experiences, trying to project myself as the best with respect to what people around me expect. I was actually a crow but behave today like a pigeon. Because of this change in my basic 'shape' (not physically, but behaviorally), I feel conflict inside me all the time. This is one of the main reasons for our increased stress in today's times. My real Self wants to return to its basic nature, but I can't. I have created this veil around my personality, and then I have to work hard to preserve this image. This hard work may be in terms of living a life of pretensions, lies, restlessness, unnecessary anxiety, etc., and we have become conditioned to all these things as normal way of life. Unless we realize what we were initially, and how we can bring ourselves back to our original 'shape', we will remain subjected to all these pressures and bondage. The way to freedom is to start living our lives as we wish to live, without the interference of what is expected from us. Then only we can enjoy the present moment, as they say!