Nature has given a unique identity to all of us. Each of us is different from other. When we try to copy someone else we are going against nature. Nature never copies, infact every living thing produced by nature is unique. We all are unique in ourselves and have our character and qualities but we don’t even try to look for them but try to follow someone else and in turn, we kill our original self. In a situation to become someone else most of the time, we lose our identity permanently. Our individuality is expressed more through a various combination of choices than particular possessions. It is not easy to understand ourselves. We have to take a lot of struggles to realize who we are and very few people try to do that. Looking at some else’s life, it can help us to understand our life. Everyone is unique in this world. It is not a very sensible thing to constantly compare our-self with other people. We consciously or unconsciously try to imitate those whose personalities inspire us. In this struggle, we do not focus on exploring ourselves and ruining our innate hidden abilities. Whether it is a living person or someone who has passed away, basing your feeling of self-worth and efficiency on the habits and routines of someone else will make you miserable in the long run. No matter what milestone you achieve, you will have to keep seeking guidance and validation from the work that your idol is doing or has done in the past. You worry that if you don’t graduate from the same college as them or if you don’t go through the kind of struggles they have been through, you won’t be able to follow the proven path. The idea that if you can find out how successful people live and then copy it, you will be able to emulate it. Maybe if you get up just as early, the universe will magically give you a billion dollars. If you blindly try to imitate others, you kill your character. Be yourself. It is the biggest cliché in the book of an amateur philosopher. “Imitation is death” sounds better than the lame old “just be yourself.” And it means the same. But let’s pretend for a second that someone can provide you with an exact roadmap to success. What if you get to a destination to find out that you arrived at the wrong place? That is what imitation does. Be bigger than that. Always create your own path—no matter how hard it is. And you better love it too. Because that’s the only right path there is.
Ways to stop imitate others: When we choose to emulate someone else instead of being who we are, we are telling God that he was wrong in creating us the way he has. God loved you and made you different than everyone else. No one will ever be you. Embrace who you are. Every person has a lot of strengths and weaknesses. The primary goal is to identify them. When you try to be someone else, you are ignoring the forces that lie within yourself. The person you are trying to imitate is not better than you, but they are different, and that is okay. You can imitate, but at some point, you have to start identifying who you are as a painter — the ‘who am I’ of the inward journey that every artist must take. Everyone has a different experience than others. Imitating other people is fruitless because you will never fully follow them because their experiences are unique to them. You could never be me, and I could never be you. We are different in so many ways, and that fact is a beautiful thing. We should try to take inspiration from people around us, from all important people who are living on this planet but resist the temptation of imitating them. There is the difference between imitating someone and getting inspired by someone, and we should understand it. Rather than trying to copy somebody we should try to discover ourselves, understand out true nature and try to be ourselves. Let’s discover real us. Let’s give us a chance to express our true self; our true individuality is not the one which society or people want us to be. Let’s just be our-self. My advice is to create your standards, be proud of yourself and accomplishments. Be happy and secure in your skin. The “Self” is the first love. Other love falls under that. You don’t need to compete! What you need is to be happy. You are a person, appreciate that and stop needing to be stroked into believing in yourself. Don’t imitate others. Observe them, learn from them, but don’t try to be like them. Learn their skills but then implement them in your own life and move forward on your own road. Because you are walking your own road, you cannot follow the footsteps of somebody else, nor can someone else walk your road for you. They have their road, you have yours. Why did the Creator give all of us different fingerprints, different ears, and different noses? Wouldn’t it have been much easier for Him to make all of us out of a single mold; One model; no differences, no comparisons. He could have done it, but He didn’t. Apparently He needs us to be individual. He needs us to be different. Certainly this fact adds to the pleasure of the game. If all the characters in the play were alike, then it wouldn’t be much fun to watch. He surely likes us all to be different. And He surely needs us all to be different! Don’t Imitate Others, Dare To Be Yourself!
( The author is a teacher at Govt High School Brakpora Anantnag. Views are his own)