SHIVOM
From the very instance that the child starts understanding the relevance of family the extended family, of friends and the people who are taking care of it, it is since then the concepts of life change from the individual perception to the perception as what the society feels about you. These changes normally take a moderate movement in establishing itself and taking over the concept in which you were the master of the essence of your being. Like the time you are told by your parents or caretaker to change the attire which you find to be good for the party but there are these people who feel the other is better suitable, and this is not for you, but for your image which is to be shouldered there during your stay at the party venue. And you adhere, as in an unsaid manner it has been established in your conscious mind that these people (the elders) are better than you (as the time you cried due to hunger these people had the thing which made you feel satisfied with something, which meant that even when you fail to accomplish they can make it happen for you which is statement that these set of people, parents, are far more stronger/ better than what you are) so by adhering to the call of the parents, the child takes another step to undermine itself and take the society to be regal. Then the choice of friends, choice of food, choice of school rather all the things is decided by the parents, who don’t fail to justify why they have blocked your take and adjure theirs, and not to forget, all this in the name of the society.
This emotion dwells in the person all through out its life, and the choice of academics for career is also based upon these very ethics but by the time the child has reached a stage when it can take a call upon which profession to choose for shaping its life (in societal terms), till then the child has lost complete trust on itself and there is nothing which the child can decide taking itself to be epicentre, but till that age there are other influences like friends or some relative or friends relative, which have taken a space (which earlier only belonged to the parents) in making the child take the call for deciding upon its career, but one thing which remains within the child, is to do something which is dependent upon how the society would perceive it, as the understanding of the self has gone missing, thats why even the people who make big in professional terms of society, often get bored or exhausted in their work, because it had been decided on pretext of others as one wasn’t aware of it likes as in “individual”.
The choice of career based upon the conclusions drawn from the societal scale, often leads people in despair as that is not the thing which the individual really appreciates doing, but as that was “happening” thing in the society that time when the choice was made, so the person chooses it. All these choices, when sum up and some juncture of time, when things aren’t as what the society wants them to be, then there is stress there is mental agony, and with all those numerous instances of damaging the “self” there are significant chances that people slip into depression. This depression, is not present in one way but has many facets, like anger lesser tolerance unable to keep oneself joyful fights within the family (husband wife brawls) as all what has been done is being expedited is in context with the society, there is hardly know how about if all this is relevant to the person as an individual.
To be something in society is the main target of life, but in this quest the “life” takes the back burner, leading a tussle amongst the life and the societal being, resulting in the person either compromising or slipping into one or another kind of depression, and in either of the case jeopardising the life further. Lets we both, the author and its wise reader take a view on what is life and what is the need for adhering to the system of the society, and how can a truce be drawn so that the common occurring depression, heart ailments be kept at bay without any medicine or measure. This heed of the individual to find some kind of relief a certain feel of solace from the struggle which is happening within, leads the person to search for the place/person who can bring some respite, resulting some people taking on to drugs/liquor or smoking and there are others who try and connect with meditation centres/ masters who are accepted by the society to be able to cater the desired attributions. Drugs and other means takes the person get off from its always sticking and ticking thoughts by releasing certain chemicals and in the other method of approaching the masters, they tend to lead the person into some other set of exercises (mental or physical), but unfortunately none of them make the person connect with itself, and recognise the immensity which is lying within the individual but is unexplored. The Vedanta is of the very few system in which this abandoned self is again recognised and the individual does feel solace, which was always there within.
SHIVOM