If you are thinking about being innovative, creative, or unique, hold your horses before you act. There are areas where conforming to norms is actually a good thing. Yes, you heard it right; a bit odd coming from a creative person; but not all rules are meant to be broken.
The Digital Time Capsule & Daily Chaos
While digging through old blogs, I stumbled upon a Marathi post I wrote years ago about ‘change‘. It got me thinking, and now you’re stuck reading about it. Is it just me, or have you noticed how frayed our patience has become over the last few years? People don’t bother waiting at traffic signals anymore. They lean on their horns as if decibels could magically dissolve a bumper-to-bumper jam, usually because someone couldn’t bother to hold a single lane. Meanwhile, our cities wear our apathy on every corner. In Pune, we’ll spend weeks debating whether festival streets should shake to a DJ’s speakers or traditional Dhol Tasha beats, all while ignoring the plastic cups piling up around our feet.
The Convenient Clean Chit
Recent videos of people littering in newly launched Vande Bharat trains are just another symptom of this pervasive “what’s it to me?” mentality. The roads around us are a permanent display of this attitude. Every one of us has tossed a food wrapper or a scrap of paper while walking. Sometimes without even noticing the act. Yet, we end up complaining about the heaps of trash on every corner of the city. We blame the administration for not clearing it up frequently, and politicians for not fixing the system. Conveniently we always get ourselves a clean chit for being part of the problem.
It’s us who litter, neither the government nor the administration. They don’t send out trucks every night to scatter garbage all over the city. We start the trend right at the corner where we stop for a chai-sutta break. As we walk back home, we toss chip bags and water bottles. We leave our trash behind the second we deboard a train in our rush to reach the destination.
Mindfulness Starts at the Curb
We keep hearing a lot about mindfulness and mental health these days. Yet, we rarely consider the role our ambient environment plays in helping us stay calm or joyful. Clean and peaceful surroundings help us concentrate on whatever we are doing—be it work, study, or just lying down after a stressful day. How stressful is it to walk to the office while trying to avoid getting muck splashed on your clothes or dodging the stink of an overflowing garbage bin? Imagine feeling under the weather while a dozen drivers lean on their horns during a standstill traffic jam.
So, if you ask me, let’s just be mindful of our actions. If a place is clean, calm, and serene, you really don’t need to be a trendsetter by being the one who tosses a food wrapper or a crushed drink can.
This post is a part of Blogchatter Half Marathon.
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