Why I Stopped Herding
It was tough, but it became a great choice for my happiness.
According to Tutor2U:
Herding is the social pressure ones have to be accepted in a group.
If you are with a group of friends, it’s fine. Go ahead and spend time with them.
I’m not here to say that being a part of a group is bad, but when you start to get serious in life, it may be a good thing to stop herding.
At some point in our lives, we were like this. Trying to fit in with the herd and want to be a part of the pack so that you feel safe. But the problem arises when you are just trying to follow their criteria of acceptance.
Following the herd on what they do may not always be the best choice. In fact, just for the sake that you want to be a part of them, you would take these huge amounts of effort to be like them so that you can feel safe.
The best way to say it is, the fear of missing out.
A few years ago, I used to be this kid. Trying to fit in with a group of friends and be like them. But as I grew older, these things just don’t seem right anymore.
The realization
At some point, I realized that when I was with this group of people, I just didn’t feel like if it’s me. I wasn’t happy, I was doing it so that people can say that I am awesome right at my face, and finally join the ‘cool’ club. The worst part was that I realized that I have wasted nearly two years of my time trying to be a part of the pack.
And there is a thing when the family tells you to get a good job and be a manager for that company. When I heard about that, there was this stirring feeling inside me that gave me an alert on whether I want to see myself working for someone for the rest of my life.
Because of that, I began doing self-reflection time for myself in the middle of the night. I wrote about what I want to be, what I love, and how I want people to see me in the future.
As I wrote all my desires down and drew the lines together, I realized that I may have wasted a lot of my time trying to herd and fill in their criteria of acceptance. I wasn’t being me, I was only doing it to boost my ego, I’m not learning and worst of all, I wasn’t quite happy.
The worst addiction of herding, I found out, that wasted most of my time came from social media. As we follow friends, their updates just keep coming, and most of the stories are about food and the time they hung out with their friends. I knew I had to do something quickly to stop these miserable thoughts.
How I stopped herding
It wasn’t easy at first, because this is part of a habit and I had to do some ‘cruel’ things as well to make it stop.
First, I had to realize that I have a dream to chase. I saw a post once that said that your dreams aren’t going to happen if you don’t put any actions to it. I knew that he was right, so I began writing down things I needed to do to chase after my dreams. I made it my determination to achieve it.
But then, I had to realize that if I want to get serious about my life, I am going to have to start hanging out less. This is the one that terrifies me because I wasn’t used to going at it myself and I was still afraid of missing out, but if I don’t do it, I know I won’t make my goals happen.
I knew it wasn’t going to be easy until I found a quote from a book called The Warren Buffett Way:
Mindless imitation of their peers.
He said this when he showed a couple of students lists of great reputational banks, filled with people with high IQs, that filed bankruptcy. So as you can see here, being the greatest doesn’t always win but, quoting Mr. Buffet again:
Valuing the ability of managers is a subjective effort that defies quantification.
When I read that, I knew that the real strength of success comes from within. So I made up my mind and began my process to stop bit by bit.
When we were about to go out, I made a curfew, be back by 9. People were looking at me like ‘are you serious?’. But I did it anyway.
Then the next hang out, I reduced my hang out time to 8 then that was the point when they realized that I might not be the ‘fun’ person to hangout. I don’t know, I found out that they were in another hangout a week after and they didn’t invite me. It hurts at first, so this is what I did.
Then, I muted some accounts from social media and only followed ones that gave me value. I know, it’s mean to do that, but I guess some things are necessary for me to grow. I used to feel depressed and jealous that people are going to parties whereas I was at home studying. Now that I unfollowed some friends, and followed the ones whom I felt close, I felt so much happier (not because I kicked some people out of my feed).
I mostly followed accounts that had self-development, news, and businesses. So in the end, my social media is mostly educational for me rather than to be really social and the result is that I felt a bit more confident day by day.
Another way I did is realizing my hobbies/wants. I love movies, people who followed me know that I am a huge nerd on this, there was never a single month where I miss a movie night out, especially when the movie was released on that day (but due to the outbreak, I couldn’t go to the cinemas).
So when I realized that I prefer movie night outs over drinking, I went to the cinemas instead and got two or three friends only who were interested, which is so much better than a crowd. I saved a lot of time and money on those, felt so excited about watching, I get to reconnect better with my friends, and unexpectedly learn something from movies to the point that it sparked my new interest in writing.
And thanks to my new interest in writing, I was able to join a lot of great writing communities on Facebook. They are all such nice and wonderful people who helped motivate me to write for joy, and best of all, I get to learn a lot about the world of writing!
At that point, I have begun spending time for myself. I get to think and try to figure out who I am.
After some alone time, I realized that I am going to have to completely trade herding for my dream. Taking time for yourself is actually quite healthy, here is an article I wrote about it:
The outcome
I used to live for being part of the pack, but now I realize that it’s okay to be a rouge to chase after my dreams, like the Mandalorian from Star Wars.
I felt like I have more to live for now. I got involved in reading and writing, stock markets, and playing guitar. I want to keep doing these four things I love and earn some income from it.
I also realized that I didn’t want to be a manager of a company but an entrepreneur and writer. So, with less time herding, I got more time for myself and enjoyed this more than going with what society tells me to be.
Just like many successful and richest people in the world, they pretty much go where the crowd doesn’t. In the end, these people turned out powerful.
Take a look at Mark Zuckerberg, Louis Vuitton, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett. They didn’t herd as well and look where it got them, and best of all, they love their jobs.
I hope that you all learned something from here.
