You should add a new rule to your rule book: Respect what your elders say and learn to accept what they say, without making them say it over and over again.

Last night as I read these words on my phone, I realized how we all have grown up listening to these kind of statements and conventions all our lives. Since day one you are told, Listen to your elders, Accept whatever they say, do not argue or try convincing them to change their minds, they know better, they know what’s good for you and what’s not. Well honestly speaking, tell me how many of you agree? It really wasn’t a conscious attempt but my mind couldn’t resist the urge to rationally challenge this convention’s authenticity. Forgive me if I am doing anything against the specified moral codes, but I can’t help it. The philosophies to which our society subscribes must be tested and dependable. If it’s going to be just another product of human conformity, than I am sorry, but I beg to differ.

As a matter of fact, nobody knows what’s better for someone; nobody knows if it’s good for me to marry that guy, that family, that business man and a man of so and so specification, in fact nobody even knows if it’s good for me to marry at all! (Don’t freak out, I’m using marriage just an example). Older people use their experience-knowledge to combat this uncertainty, but you know what, it isn’t of much help. I believe in the individualistic school of thought. I believe that every individual is different from the other to such a degree that we cannot go into generalizing things. More than making it simpler, it complicates matters in the long run.

Without any more drifting away from what I intend to say, here I go, declaring it - plain and simple. “I do not think that this rule of accepting whatever elders say is an appropriate one”. Had I accepted everything my elders told me to do, I would have never ended up in a college which taught be so much, I would have never gotten to know the best person living on this planet (my teacher), and I would have never been able to discover so much that I have discovered now. My Mamo, who lives in UAE now, was a rebel case in his childhood. He so wanted to go study in America that he applied to the university silently, applied for visa and everything on his own, and then begged on his knees to his father to let go of him, cause he won’t let him! And this I’m talking about is 30 years ago when children in this part of the world couldn’t even think of breaking a general conversation with their fathers, and weren’t supposed to have an opinion. Today, out of my nana’s three sons, the one who is doing “the best” is my mamo who chose to rebel. He knew that he knew better, because its not possible for anybody else to know what is better for him. He is at one of the most respectable position today, supporting his whole family. He drives a freaking awesome Ferrari, and hasn’t deviated a tad from his religion, values, and morals, as was expected of him when he left for America.

So, If you are reading this, I want to tell you that trying to convince elders is not that I am not respecting them. I respect you, and you know that, I care for you, and you know that, but is it always going to be this way? Will you always consider yourself as someone twenty years elder than me, and so all I say is trash and all you say is to be accepted as it is just because you are elder than I am? That’s unfair, you know it! Had I accepted your disagreement on the idea of communicating after my days at that place were done, had I not convinced you, we would have never gotten to know each other today. Boundaries.. what good do they do? What good are they capable of doing? You have made the last two years bearable for me, you have kept me moving on daily basis, you are the one who has kept me standing on this ground. You know it all so well! but i'll tell you, limitations and rules are the bridges which will only take us half way there, we will make discoveries and spend a time of our lives, we will be capable of laughing and crying together, we will unveil alot more than we ever expected out of each other, but these bridges will only take us halfway there. The last few steps are to be taken alone. These steps are a war against conventions, against the generalization of what is possible, against the impossibility of the idea of what is possible!