Hello. I am your typical 19 year old “teenager”. I am going to give you a mystery, well not exactly a mystery, more of a challenge. At the end of this article (!) you’re going to assess me. You’re going to decide whether I’m a so called “nerd” or a “jock”. So here goes nothing…
I come from a middle class Muslim family, where I was raised up in a semiconservative manner; Following the religious trends, being a “mama’s boy” (so to speak), never being disobedient, well, basically being the “perfect straight A’s guy”. I am the General secretary of my school debate club, a popular face among the teachers. I am the example that other parents set for their children to follow. Ok, so far, what’s your assessment of me? NERD written all over me, right?
Let’s give you some more information. I am into sports. I’m quite good at basketball, swimming , badminton and I’m the captain of our school basketball team. Not to brag, but I’m quite good looking. And yeah, you can guess that I do have a lot of admirers. I’m adventurous; I often go out all by myself to explore the world. Yeah, I experiment with my hairstyle a lot. Yeah, I do enjoy those “cross room stares” (if you know what I mean). I’m often reckless . I don’t care what consequences my deeds bring, to me and to my surroundings. My ego and my pride comes first to me. NOW, what’s your assessment of me? Jock?
Ok, so far I have given you two sides of my character, my personality. And I know that you have automatically judged me. Now, either you have assessed me to be a nerd, or a jock or you’re confused. You’re at a dilemma as to which category to fit me in. Now I’m going to write about my actual intentions about the above “jibber-jabber” (Is that even a word?).
According to me, at present, we, the teens are facing a crucial problem. And that is we are at a crossroads. And a simple decision decides through which road we advance forward. And according to me, that decision is “to judge” or “be judged”. We, at present have divided ourselves into these two categories (nerd and jock) because of our primal instinct to be the best. And while doing that, we are judging others. And the sad part is that most of us are actually going with this flow. Rather than acknowledging the uniqueness in a person, we are judging them based on some preset information stored in our cerebrum. How do we judge a person? How do we put a tag on them as to what they are? How do we consider someone to be less competent than us? Does this judgment come from jealousy? Does this judgment come from over-confidence? Does this judgment come from personal insecurities? Does this judgment come from ego? Wherever this judgment comes from, it is creating a “TREND”. A trend to demean people, to create inferiority complex in our future leaders. What most of us forget is that, when we are judging or assessing someone, they are assessing us too. And when we interact with a person by our initial assessment only rather than actually getting to know them, we always risk being indifferent to their uniqueness and actual personality. So, what I’m trying to say is that, it’s actually not a “TREND” to be a so called “NERD” or a “JOCK”. It’s actually a form of disguise we use to hide our personal insecurities. Tagging someone as a “NERD” and bullying them or demeaning them as a “JOCK” might just be a trend but according to me, this is not a trend to follow. Remember, there’s always divine justice in store for us and our lifestyle decides how that justice will turn out for us.
So, what am I? a NERD or a JOCK?
(P.S. I am not any of the things I said above) CHEERS!!!!!!!
