Unpacking Democracy: Who Decides? You or The Majority?

Maybe a nation can be governed correctly using a democratic system, but you can’t govern your life successfully based on democracy.

If you’re trying to get me to do something and you tell me “Everyone is doing it”, then you just gave me a solid reason not to do it. 🙅‍♀️

I’ve realized severally that the majority is not always right, and if you are a teenager then there is a high chance that the majority is wrong.🌚

I’ve learnt to be okay when I’m the only one or part of the few people standing for something and I'm writing this so you can learn to do the same.🤝

They say experience is the best teacher and that’s not wrong because if you grew up the way I did then you’ll find out that if you want to survive the world you’ll learn to accept that you’re different from everyone else and that does not make you any less of a person. Without this discovery, I probably would have drowned in a river of low self-esteem and self-hate and grown to be a very timid lady.🥲

Believe me, I’m not saying now I’m above any pressure that comes my way but I’ve built a mindset that makes me keep myself from feeling the pressure at all.😌

You might or might not have heard the saying “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for everything”. Well, these are not just mere words! You can’t live your lives based on ‘vibes and inshallah’, you need to have personal life principles that guide your living. Emphasis on “personal” because I know there are some principles that we grew up with and our parents constantly sounded in our ears. Some we followed, some we threw away, and some we were necessarily made to follow. Regardless of this, you need to have your principles. There should be a low that you must not get below, not because “mummy said so” but because you say so.

I would say the younger you are while reading this the better for you. However, I've realised that popular opinion has a strong hold on older people as well. The constant need to feel among, the need to feel like you belong, the need not to be the weirdo or the uncool one. But I promise, once you break the hold, it becomes so liberating because you know that regardless of what people are moving with, this is where you stand and you're comfortable with it.

Now I know this feels like a motivational "aspire to perspire" speech, but in all honesty, I want you to see that you can live any and everywhere without feeling so pressured because of the principles that you hold so dear to yourself.

If you’re a Christian, then this is even more on you because you have to stand out every time and how lucky are you if you have other Christians with you, “shucks!” if you don’t, you will necessarily still have to stand out. This will be easy if you learn to be comfortable standing for what you stand for, not just because you have to but because you want to.

Most of the time, the majority does the dumbest thing and you’ll only realize this from an outsider's perspective, not when you are in the majority. To be fair, democracy does not even seem to work for most nations practicing it, so it’s even contestable that it is the best system of governance.🤷‍♀️

Martin Luther King Jr. mentioned that a man named Reinhold Niebuhr was of the opinion that groups are more immoral than individuals, and that hit me deep because truly if you check it, groups are really more immoral than individuals.

When next you feel pressured into being like other people, remember that life is not a democracy and the majority is mostly wrong, so nothing do you.💅😌

As much as this wasn't meant to be motivational, I hope you feel motivated. See you at the next read.💖