Individuality Is Killing The Community

Desire to be unique and attain individuality has affected our happiness which comes from our surrounding and society. It is true that collection of individuals form a community but in that community, individuals need to act as community members not as individuals.

Now, what happened is over the time the need for highly motivated and unique persons has grown enormously. Everywhere individuality is coveted and in high demand. And though this behaviour has brought into light some great individuals which were a perfect specimen of individuality. Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison and even the fictional characters like Sherlock Holmes, James Bond and all the supernatural stars.

For the last quarter of the century not only in the media but in every sphere of our lives independence is promoted over-commitment. Take the example of technology, be it medical or computer or whatever, the power and charm of the individuality and uniqueness are promoted. It is the dream of today’s teenager to work as a freelancer from the comfort of their home. When these freelancers, brilliant individuals, by the way, can’t bear the interaction with their family at home they opt to work through coffee shops and office spaces. Now, it is not against the human nature to seek comfort and a calm environment but raising your standard so high or in other words, lowering your threshold so low for considering intrusion in personal space has spread the fabric of society so thin it close to tearing apart. Although everyone seems to be worried about the behaviour of our younger generation who are growing further and further apart but what do we do counter this problem. We are subconsciously pushed into the direction of which will lead us further and further apart from being a community.

Everyone wants to be themselves, everyone wants the world to recognize their exclusivity and it is ok but what is happening as a result the society as a whole has stopped to seize. It is now becoming an entity which only consists of individuals and the state. Too much uniqueness is overrated.

I had an interesting conversation with a friend a while ago. We discussed that today nobody wants a modest house where everything is available in the neighbourhood. Parks, friends for their children, caring neighbours and so on. No, everyone dreams of a mansion, a castle where they have all the amenities of life exclusively for themselves. Nobody wants to share. Independence over-commitment.

In the result of all the explained outlandish behaviour the bonds which we form to compensate the need for community, the social gatherings which are attended, the community programs organized become shallow. People who crave to live or are living in palaces don’t share the deep bonds which masses living in communities can boast.

The need of the individual over the common good of society has taken precedence. Today, we don’t like to go to public places, everything should be members-only, the selected crowd closed gatherings. Why this has happened? In the age of technology, we are connected to like-minded people in every corner of the world. However, in the real world people around us are of every sort. The conflict with our views, share an opinion and interfere. When we are presented with an option to form friends from the vast pool of world population we don’t accept the people around us. Since we have the luxury to connect with people of our choice so we make a choice, ignore the people where we find a slightest of disapproval. Breakups are on the rise, divorce rates are sky-high, people move on from a relationship as if it never happened. Why?

The sweet and short answer is because we don’t like to put up with things. Having some type of independence is a good thing but we are abusing this freedom. Freedom to keep looking for our ideal world, ideal relationship. When we have access to a person who is better than our current relations doesn’t whether he or she is on the other side of the globe, why should we settle for lesser.

As I said, we don’t like to put up. To be happy we have to accept people and circumstances less than perfect. https://thehappyminded.com/motivation/perfectionist/. We don’t like to put up with the crowd at public places as all of them are not according to our liking, we don’t accept a person with all the good and bad he/she has. Everything should be according to our liking. We are moving away from relationships. Our concept for relationships has changed. The good is accepted, bad time to leave or start thinking about leaving.

As a result, our coming generations are even pickier in choosing friends. It is becoming difficult for them to go along with all type children at school, parks and camps.

To summarize, in the times when we commend an achiever by saying “You are a superhero”, we expect our society to be more open to sharing, sharing success and failure alike. But I don’t see that happening any time sooner.