Why Do We Imitate Others?

Most of us need some inspiration or motivation to excel in our profession or even in our personal lives. We all look for inspiration in books and try to get it from people around us, from famous and successful personalities, or from iconic characters like Ram, Krishna, Jesus, etc. People often find the personalities with which they can relate and get inspired, but in that process, most of the time, they try to imitate that person, try to become like that person, and most of the time, forget their own identity.

We need inspiration and good examples to follow, and fortunately, we have many of them. We can learn a lot of things by reading about their lives, their struggle, and their achievements, and the qualities that helped them to overcome difficulties in their life. The problem is that people try to copy their idols; they try to become another X or Y, which is impossible. There can not be another Michael Jackson or Sachin Tendulkar or any other person (even you and me). Nature has given a unique identity to all of us; each of us is different from the others. By trying to become someone else, we are going against nature. Nature never copies; every living thing produced by nature is unique, and no two things are carbon copies of each other. Nature never produced another Jesus, Ram, Krishna, Mohammad, Buddha, or Mahavir; they all were unique personalities, and so are we. All these great individuals didn't copy anyone; they explored their own paths, and they expressed themselves as they were. We are all unique in our own way and have our own nature and qualities, but we don't even try to search for them; but try to become someone else, and in turn, we kill our original self. In the process of becoming someone else, most of the time, we lose our own identity permanently.

Our society, family, or even parents always want us to follow some 'good' examples, which they call ideals. There are role models in every culture or society. Their achievements are great, and nothing wrong with getting inspiration from their lives to shape our own lives. Our elders or society always try to show us the predictable path, which has already been traveled by so-called successful people; maybe they do this because they know the outcome of that path. They know if we follow X or Y, what can be the result, and what type of person we might become.

Why do they want us to become like someone successful in their eyes? What is the reason we are advised to follow some ideal personality or God? Maybe they don't want to see many people trying to establish their own identity, living their life on their own terms, traveling totally new, unpredictable paths, it might create chaos and disturb the well-established structure of society. If we follow personalities like Ram, Krishna, Jesus, or any other ideal/successful personality, then people know what to expect from us and how to deal if something goes wrong. But the problem is, we never managed to copy and reproduce any of these personalities; we couldn't produce another Jesus or Krishna or any other person because it's not possible. Even cloning can only produce two living things that look the same, but they don't think or behave the same.

Most of us try to imitate somebody because we are scared to travel an unknown path. People around us are forced to follow a particular path because they want to see a familiar personality around, with predictable behavior, and one that follows the norm. Every society wants a conformist, a camp follower who can follow the norms and preserve its institutions. Society wants us to fit in well-defined molds, wants to direct our behavior to familiar patterns. Any person who tried to break these norms and tried to travel a new path had to face tremendous resistance and anger from society. They were never accepted or praised during their lifetime. We are changing, and now at least some societies and cultures are more open to new ideas and concepts, but this is not the case everywhere. Even as independent adults, we are constantly reminded what is good and what is bad, what we should do and what we shouldn't, we are told to follow the norms,  not to question elders, etc. We cite many examples to our kids, tell them to follow these examples, and try to become like them. Very few people tell young people to get inspiration from great personalities and become what they want.

Just by imitating someone, we can never understand their life or their struggle; chances are that we may not understand our own life either. It's not that easy to imitate someone and get exactly the same results; just by imitating that particular person, we can't become like him/her. Mostly, we do that because we don't want to make an effort to understand ourselves. It's not that easy to understand ourselves; we have to take a lot of effort to realize who we are, and very few people try to do that. Looking at some else's life or reading about it can definitely help us to understand our own life. Everyone is unique and different in this world; it's not a very sensible thing to constantly compare ourselves with other people.

We should definitely try to take inspiration from people around us, from all great people who are living or have lived on this planet, but resist the temptation of imitating them. There is a difference between imitating someone and getting inspired by someone, and we should understand it. Rather than trying to imitate somebody, we should try to discover ourselves, understand our true nature, and try to be ourselves. Let's discover the real us, and the fact is that no one like us existed before or will exist after; we are all unique. Let's give ourselves a chance to express our true consciousness, our true personality, not the one that society or people around us want us to be. Let's just be ourselves.

Thanks for reading, and please share your views on this topic.

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)