Do not conform but leave an environment better than you met it

An unfortunate trend with humans is that we have an inherent tendency to copy, be like, be influenced by and conform to others around us. I watched a video of a social experiment in which a camera was planted in an elevator. The “normal” way you stand inside an elevator is facing the door. Without being told we all do this. In this social experiment, when a person walks into the elevator he or she finds six other people, who are all a part of the experiment, backing the door. In all cases videoed, the subject of the experiment gradually turns to also back the door thereby conforming to the way every other person was facing. They all did this strange act without asking a question as to why the door is backed and not faced.

This tendency to conform ensures that we become a part of our environments rather than individuals in it. When you are a part of your environment you will miss the things that are obviously wrong with it. It is this tendency to conform and be a part of the environment that makes students come into a classroom and deface the walls with, “So-and-so waz hia.” It is the tendency that makes us walk across refuse dumps and gutters that breed mosquitoes into our “clean” rooms. It is the tendency that makes “responsible” parents pay for the examination malpractices of their wards. After all, “Everyone is doing it.”

I know of Bitrus, an NYSC member, who organized his hitherto “senseless” students into a JETS Club competition because he sensed the potential in the abandoned children. I know of Ayo who led families to clean up and create drainages and waterways for his street. I know of Justina who supports public school education and has given out over 5000 reading materials to children she has no relationship to. I know of Hamzat who drew the world’s attention and action to dying children and government negligence through a twitter hash tag #followthemoney.

Now, this is success: NOT conforming but leaving an environment better than you met it. If you desire to be a successful person you should adopt this simple policy of ensuring that rather than conform to your environment, you change it, add to it, and leave it better than you met it.