Day of Nonconfirmity - Essay Example

My Day of Nonconformity As always, I began preparing for the Day of Nonconformity a day before by spending a few hours reading about it. My first reaction was one of confusion, because as I understood it, nonconformity means going against the current, not doing what others are doing, or not doing something just because it is a generally accepted form of behavior. If I followed what was expected of me and write this report on how I spent my Day of Nonconformity, wouldn't I be contradicting myself Wouldn't I be conforming by living a Day of nonconformityAnd then I realized this was an experiment after all, and I could not let my mind get trapped in an endless loop of reasoning, so I decided I could conform to the parameters of this social psychology experiment and be nonconforming in everything else.

The second problem is that as I looked at my behavior, I saw several aspects where I was already a nonconformist, in a sense making me different from the others. In these areas of my life - such as the way I thought about good and bad, the right thing to do and why I do certain things - I thought differently from others my age. This is because I was trained to be somewhat independent and think on my own. So my problem was: should I continue being true to myself and behave as I am, different in these respects from the others, or should I be nonconforming by nonconforming to myselfI thought hard before I realized that I could leave those nonconformist behaviors intact and continue being true to myself, because this is one of the goals of this experiment, and instead to look at those aspects of my life where I was conformist, where I flowed with the crowd for no other reason than because I found it the right thing to do.

I took mental note of those points in my day and then planned what I had to otherwise do.When I woke up on the appointed day, I had a mantra: "Be true" and "Swim against the current". I wanted to focus on finding myself and knowing if I could do things I want to without being pressured by others. At breakfast, I didn't eat much because I didn't like what we had. On the way to school, I took the longer route and discovered things I never knew were around me. When I met my friends, I decided to listen instead of dominating the conversation, which others found strange that they asked me if I was sick or if I had a serious problem.

In a flash of nonconformity, I told them to mind their own business (which I thought was what I really wanted to say often, but because of the need to be part of the group I said otherwise). They're friends, so I knew they would understand.By mid-day, I already felt strange because I realized that I had been more of a conformist than I thought, saying things I knew others wanted to hear, or doing things that made me feel good and cool. I felt the interior stress of doing things I don't like and not doing the things I like.

There were occasions I wanted to give up, like when my best friend invited me to watch a movie everyone else was watching but I turned her down. I managed to convince her to watch it the following day after this experiment is over. It was then that I realized that without a higher reason, such as conducting a one-day experiment, or a noble one such as doing things to help others, being a nonconformist just for the sake of being one is not worth the cost. This led me to think more deeply of the reasons for my behavior.

All these thoughts and reactions helped me to understand how some people whom we find to be nonconformists can behave so consistently. There must be a higher reason for their behavior, and this forced me somehow to think twice in the future when I judge these people. I think by understanding what those higher reasons are, in the same way I want others to understand my nonconformist attitudes in some things, I could know these people better. Lastly, I realized that if I worked at it, I could extend my inherent nonconformist way of thinking and behaving to other areas, and convince others to do the same.

I think this can help people find their true selves, behave more consistently, and deepen their understanding of others by striving to discover the reasons why they act that way.