To Branch Or To Root?
Advice on differentiating when it’s necessary to branch off or stick to your roots
By Isabella Terzian
With the volatile and blistering nature of today’s social media trends, it can be challenging for an individual to navigate how to prioritize their passions. To begin, it’s important to differentiate where you’re being impacted, or just influenced. It’s easier than ever to wander away from your passions or typical hobbies due to an influence. When a certain aesthetic, hobby, or even article of clothing is flaunted and attractively contextualized on a large scale, it may easily become an object of temptation to many, prompting relative personal attribution. Jumping onto a bandwagon is not an inherently bad choice, but it can dilute the bona fides of your pursuits. Volatile fixations may lead to frustrating conclusions regarding our interests and sense of identity. However, it is possible to filter out the impersonal influences and preserve the beneficial impacts.
Picking up popular interests may eventually impact the integrity of the current interests one may possess. It’s important to evaluate where your personal connections and values lay in your interests rather than what you think would seem appealing or what others have presented in an attractive light; Discovering new things that may complement your persona and identity may provide a well-needed sense of introspection or transition. These efforts can be easily accomplished through the practice of patience, education, and self-awareness. It’s easy to quickly pursue and explore new things presented to you when you like something, especially when you want to accelerate your familiarity with it. My advice here would be to take your time. Time is an excellent determinator of compatibility in numerous aspects. When exploring new ideas, you should be willing to conduct extensive research surrounding the subject in order to discover whether it is cohesive to their personality. When one considers the pervasive impact of outstanding personal factors, finding a balance between rational and irrational explorations may become easier.
There are many measures that can be taken to address the internal conflict of exploration vs. rootedness, but, ultimately, the responsibility of choosing lies on the individual. When faced with crossroads of authenticity and sincerity, it’s yours to decide which path to embark on.