I am a preconceived notion, I love my existence.

From deciding a junk outlet that’d keep your tummy diarrhea free to carting out your favorite shoe through an e-commerce platform. From falling flat for that smile in a cafe/bar to blindly trusting a mobile app map for traffic en-route. From gauging your boss’s mood to choosing that cliched hobby. From booking your vacation to folding that poker bet. From selecting your mutual fund plan to building a national overview by reading/watching news. From deciding your day/week/month/year/life through a zodiac guru to building a superstition over persistent observations.

Your ‘feel’ decides tonnes of things in your life. Your ‘gut feel’ validates action on things you’re confused about. Your ‘strong feelings’ push you to ambiguity (resulting in success or failure). And a fancy term for all this called ‘a preconceived notion’ makes you believe in a thing which otherwise your mind or heart would refuse to.

#TrueStory

So, is it a good or a bad thing to build one?

Frankly, there’s a world war that took place because someone built a preconceived notion. And also, what helps me draft this piece is also invented out of someone’s preconceived notion. Point being, every time somebody felt a notion, it resulted in action, creation, innovation blah blah. The good or bad part of it is very subjective to the cause it serves.

However, it isn’t a problem as long as every single decision of your life is dependent on one. Like, you’d have a point of view on everything basis your feel, through your past physical or mental or even subconscious (LoL) experience. And your dependency on this very feel would narrow down your thinking to a whole new different level. So much so that you wouldn’t entertain any cross thoughts against your thinking or for that matter you’d even start finding flaws in that somebody’s thoughts.

Forget the personality trait that your building for yourself, forget the way you’d be perceived by everyone around. On the flip side, you’re actually killing a potential new way of thinking, you’re letting down a zillion new approach routes, you’re swallowing the possibilities what could work or what could’ve worked. I wouldn’t shy away from claiming that a single human’s preconceived notion can bring down an entire human civilization.

Let’s brush you through some real examples.

Case 1 — Booking your vacation.

You’d search the world on the web, you’d surf the F out on building a killer economical plan that lets you explore the best of that place (according to you and what people wrote). So what are you missing here? I’d say the experience of what this vacation ideally could be. Because you’d follow somebody’s itinerary, you’d miss out on trying new things, new cuisines, new places, new people. All you’d do is end up getting into clutter, trying to enjoy within that clutter, populate your social media with clutter and come back with a similar point of view. Eventually, if you skipped your notion, there are so many new places, people, cultures, cuisines that are waiting, especially in India, you can’t imagine or expect what’s in store for you.

Case 2 — Picking up a hobby.

You’d see the world around you, pick up the coolest thing that you see and the next moment you wish to do the same. You’d start speaking about owning it if you’ve not at least started practicing it. And this is followed by so many things that you feel which are out of your thinking and life spectrum. You feel this can only be achieved by the mental & physical elites who dedicated their lives to it. My question to you Sir/Madame — What stops you from picking a guitar, violin and learning it? What stops you from playing squash, tennis or any other sport you want to? What stops you from painting, dancing and excelling in it? What stops you from writing or vlogging and expressing your point of view? Of course, you’re bound to think about what people would say? Would they appreciate your stance on it blah blah? My point is those people and their point of view only matter if they’ve excelled in it. If not, show them that middle finger (mentally, not physically) and move on.

I can go on & on to the number of things that you’re missing on because you’ve built a notion.

All I wish to convey is to use any preconceived notion along with an attitude to be open to the world around you + some use of logic. This combination can create wonders and magic for you. I know that’s a lot to ask from somebody, but you can start by at least listening and absorbing what the world wishes to convey. Maybe it opens a new door for you, maybe it changes you as a personality, maybe it helps you come across as an intelligent human being (if that hard sell works :p)

After all, I am a preconceived notion and I do not wish to love my existence.