The other day while scrolling through the feeds out of boredom, I came across a post…surely this was different than any other. It talked about an incident which is infamously known as “THE SEOUL HALLOWEN CROWD CRUSH”. This incident took place in the Itaewon neighbourhood of Seoul, South Korea. At least 159 people took their last breath on that fateful night. When I read about it, it literally shook me from top to bottom. Surely I heard about that incident before, but when I saw the extent of the event that happened, I was literally out of words. What happens when there are literally more than 5000 people in a small ally way which is only 10 wide and 150 ft long? CROWD CRUSH!! People died from asphyxiation when the bars surrounding them were blasting music at full capacity, that’s how cheap and insignificant the life of a common man is! Don’t get me wrong, this article is not to demotivate you all readers, but it’s just the reality, portrayed with the help of words. Putting the thoughts in our minds into words is an art, let's see if I’m able to do the former.

MUCH NEEDED A REALITY CHECK

Let us start from the beginning. How do you perceive yourself in your mind? The answer might vary from person to person. But in general, the image would be positive. After all, it's human tendency to see all the good that he possesses in him. Now let us widen the spectrum. What do you think your family thinks about you and what significance do you have in your family? Now’s the time when you might identify some of your shortcomings, but still, the good things would overpower the not-so-good. You would say your parents can do anything for you or some of you who have siblings, might be telling that they love my brother or sister more but still my parents love me nonetheless! After all, there’s a reason they are called your family they care about you and you are a gem to them. Of course, there can exceptions!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, let's give our spectrum a more significant girth now! What influence and significance do you hold in your neighborhood or area or block? Well now’s the time when there would be much significant difference in the answers that you will give. Almost 75% of you would lie in the spectrum which signifies to not hold a significant position in your area or are someone who people have seen once or twice but they don’t know your name or anything about you! That’s where you start feeling that you are not so significant to other people. Even if you are someone who people are familiar with or admire, still they are not that interested in what’s going inside you. They are just concerned with your public image and your social skills. All the other significant 25 percent are the people like the committee members of the block, rich families, a famous general store manager, a gangster, or a criminal who has committed some serious crime worth knowing, and people like these.

If that’s not enough for you to see your worth, let me give a final blow to your face! What position or significance you hold in your state? Well well well, now you see what you really are! You are merely a statistic! Statistics on the basis of which various studies are conducted. You are merely data in someone’s excel sheet! What makes people still think that they are invincible, is that amazes me. No matter how hard you try to get that multinational job or try to ace that exam of yours, even if you get that still there’s literally a train full of people in front of you. All you are, are merely numbers. In the incident that I mentioned at beginning of the article, we are just like the victims in that. “While we die, people are just busy in their life.” That’s the reality of the world we are living in. Don’t worry you are not alone. Even while writing this, I’m feeling really overwhelmed and disheartened at the same time. After all, comparing myself with mere numbers just feels so empty. But the key is to accept and move on.

ESCAPING THE VOID

There’s a famous saying by David Ogilvy, “Don't bunt. Aim out of the ballpark. Aim for the company of immortals.” Go all at once, whenever you do any task and just aim for greatness, aim for being amongst the all-time greats who are remembered even after their deaths.

Instead of being overwhelmed by the reality thrown at your face. Just catch that ball and keep it with you till the time comes to throw that ball away from you. Reality does sometimes strike us hard and tends to leave a void inside us. It's important to fill that void with any positive that we can find. Just take the example of the Seoul crowd crush from above. The nature of the event was very disheartening, I mean that’s death, which not even a single person wants. They died for nothing. Still, while the bars surrounding them were blasting music there were people from amongst the crowd who were trying to revive the one’s not breathing. That’s the humanity in all of us that we should hold on to, which helps us to escape this void.

Take one task at a time. Identify your shortcomings yourself and accept them. Pay heed to your perception in people’s minds through the words that come out of their mouth and take out what you find can help you improve upon yourself. Sincerely work wherever currently you are in but keep in mind you have to bring about a change through your thoughts for the betterment of this world and see yourself actually making it. Well, there you have, the journey from being merely a data in government studies to actually conducting the studies. (just read that line again and think about it. It’s deep!)

THE CONCLUSION

After adhering to the above-mentioned arguments, a simple conclusion can be drawn, “Never ever should you feel invincible.” As soon as you are in a crowd, you are merely a statistic. All the good that you have ever done, all the people that you have ever hurt, all the people you have ever helped is next nothing in a space full of strangers. If you have noticed one thing, I haven’t further widen the spectrum and took it to “what significance do you hold in your country?” That’s because the main aim of this article is not to demotivate you, it’s just that I want to break the bubble of unawareness that most of you are in. Believe me, once you start understanding things to the deepest of the levels, there’s nothing in this world that can stop you from standing out of the crowd and you being actually recognised on a worldwide scale. With that I want to close out my article. Thank you for sticking with me till end.

Peace out!!

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