Conformity

Is it right to travel the harder, less travelled road in order to fulfill your dreams? If it causes suffering to yourself and those around you, Is it still the right thing to do? I know that so far in my life, I’ve relented to taking the easier path, I’m studying a subject I don’t feel passionate about, and seem to be following thousands of others into the meat grinder of work life. Perhaps such is the tragedy of middle class life.

If regrets and hard choices apply to one’s career, do they apply to your personal life as well? The popular drama, “Reply 1997”, summarized it well in following line:

“Do not pick the dream that you want, but the dream that is easiest to pursue. Do not the pursue the love that you desire, but love the person who loves you, as it is safer”

Is this the way to think, and if so, how does one end up adopting this mentality? From what I’ve seen and experienced, it feels like unrequited love holds the largest share in romantic love (after all, the entire Asian drama industry relies on the phenomenon to sell their shows to their audiences). Having been on both the giving and receiving end of this source of frustration, I find it difficult to accept the compromise stated above. 

Even if you do choose the person who cares for you, how do you force yourself to love them?  How do you stop yourself from having second thoughts or doubts? How do you pour everything you have into that one person and not regret it later on? I remember watching the teaser trailer for 2AM’s “You Wouldn’t Answer My Calls”, where several female celebrities were asked about their opinions towards break up. I’ve included the link to the video below as it’s quite thought provoking, but Ballerina Kim Ye Na probably put it best:

“Now that I’ve gone through a couple of heartbreaks, I am more frightened of ruining everything than losing my one true love”

This compromise, hence, might stem from societal and peer pressure, especially in Oriental countries, where marriage is viewed with upmost importance and seen as the foundations to the revered family unit. Ironically, despite this need to conform, the various mediums in Asian pop-culture continue to portray “true love” as the only kind worth pursuing, even if it does lead to bittersweet endings (or cancer, in the case of Korean ones).

Why hence, does society encourage us to hurt ourselves, to conform, yet grant us sources of individualism? Perhaps it links back to the allegory of the cave by the philosopher Plato; these mediums exist to help us fulfill our needs, to give us the illusion of freedom of choice in the pursuit of love, while depriving us of the energy to actually break away and follow our hearts.  Perhaps, as I mentioned above, this links back to the idea of “face”: we feel a need to project an image of ourselves to others that is “ideal”, which might include a healthy, long-term relationship, even if it is at its root, a lie.

2AM "Her Story" / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU69xFqLKoc