Skip to main content

Not Going With The Flow


A few days ago, I read the quote, "Only dead fish go with the flow."

My whole life, I tried to go against the flow. As a born rebel, I never learned to go with the flow, and I always tried to get things done my way (at least I tried and failed sometimes and succeeded many times). More or less, I was satisfied with how things were going (a sound-minded person doesn't need more than that). Then, things happened, and you fell into the trap of society, thinking you need to change some things in your life to make it work. You start believing one side of the story as reality; you try to go with the flow, and you stop fighting as hard as you used to. You become so resilient that your instinct to fight back dies, and all you get is a metaphorical dead fish and the flow of society's opinion. Resilience against this simply doesn't work; it's not an option. It's a sissy move just to maintain the status quo (my failed experiment).

What you really need is to become anti-fragile, a term coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Fragile things break under stress; they cannot sustain the volatile conditions of the world. So, the opposite of fragile wouldn't be things that simply don't break but rather things that, when put under pressure, get stronger. Anti-fragile things thrive on redundancy and chaos; optimization is not their primary goal. They are unlike fragile things which are optimized for better performance in specific conditions and perish when such conditions change. For example, a minimalist with fewer possessions might perish in a disaster, whereas a survivalist who has stocked up on many things he might never need will not only survive but thrive in such a scenario.

After a long time, this one is for not being the dead fish and with the spirit of going against the flow.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cockroach Theory- A beautiful speech by Sundar Pichai

Lots of problems in our lives are comparatively smaller than we think, but our reaction towards them makes them much bigger and worse. I have written about it before, but today I'm going to share a story by Sundar Pichai; it may change your perspective on a few things in your life. At a restaurant, a cockroach suddenly flew from somewhere and sat on a lady. She started screaming out of fear. With a panic-stricken face and trembling voice, she started jumping, with both her hands desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach. Her reaction was contagious, as everyone in her group also got panicky. The lady finally managed to push the cockroach away, but it landed on another lady in the group. Now, it was the turn of the other lady in the group to continue the drama. The waiter rushed forward to their rescue. In the relay of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waiter. The waiter stood firm, composed himself, and observed the behavior of the cockroach on his shirt. When he wa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Keeping Up With The Change

     The world is in constant and rapid change, and you are the outcome of the experience of these changes. We have a tendency to resist changes that we don't want around us. Understanding what fuels this tendency is very important, as the outcome of our resistance brings actions that can forever change the course of our efforts. So, how and what drives our emotions that create the tendency to resist change?      The most significant of all is the feeling of being redundant to society, the insecurity of not being able to participate in the new adaptation of generations. There are different changes that come from various aspects and perspectives of society's functions, some being progressive and some being degenerative, which is subject to debate and not discussed here. There are some questions that need to be answered, such as "Can there be any solution that can make the transition of change smoother?" and "How are changes made acceptable to the resisting m...
Post a Comment
Read more