What do you do?

“I am studying mechanical at IIT Bombay. Also working with this startup side by side”.

Who are you?

“I am XYZ. I work at McKinsey.”

And who are you?

“I am ABC. I studied BMS. Now I am doing a marketing job.”

How much do any of these answers tell you about the persons? A lot right? You have been able to put into a stereotype, haven’t you?

XYZ goes home and plays with his kids every day. He didn’t tell me that. ABC writes small poems on his on his way to home in Mumbai local. He’ll never tell me about that. It is more important to  impress me with his big credentials. He will sweep aside the most human and beautiful aspects of his life to achieve that.

But isn’t there much more to every human being? Is our background and professional association the only way to define our identity? Why do we have to complicate the introduction to our existence with “socially accepted” entities and seek for approval? Why are we limiting ourselves to the miniscule aspects of our being? This being human – having the most sophisticated machine at our disposal – why do we fail to explore it to its full potential and limit ours and others perception of with social pigeon holes? Why this mad rat race to fit into a good stereotype, that the society accepts and values?

Are we assuming the people we are introducing ourselves to are dumb? Not intelligent enough to understand who I really am? Or is it my immediate need to seek social approval that prevents us from introducing ourselves as a human being and show the full spectrum of our real being?
Next time you meet a person you really want to connect with, can you tell them about your most beautiful passion, and not about the work you don’t like to do?

Why fit yourself into a stereotype right at the beginning of an interaction? Why fit yourself into a small frame when the entire canvas is for you to explore?

Written by Pallavi Pareek