How to avoid conformity?

Watching others fall in love in college, you also want to fall in love; Step into the society, others get married, and you want to get married; Others buy a house, and you want to buy a house; Other people's babies attend various remedial classes, and you also sign up for various classes. ...

In our life, we basically follow the pace of the public, and the herd mentality is very strong. Why is there such a strong herd mentality? Perhaps there is a big factor: everyone has such an idea in his heart, "Why do others have it and I don't?" Others have boyfriend (girlfriend) friends, why don't I? Why don't I have a partner and a house when others get married and buy a house? So we started our life according to other people's model.

Conformity is actually a lazy thinking, because everyone is like this and can't be wrong. On the contrary, if you don't do this, you will be questioned by others. This behavior may also be the best interpretation of Neumann's "spiral of silence" theory, which is a concept recently seen in Communication.

Conformity psychology or the experience of people who have experienced it always exerts a subtle influence on our thinking view. In fact, to put it bluntly, the most fundamental reason for herd mentality is that you don't have a firm mentality. If you are determined to rent a house for life, you don't have to care about others buying a house; If you are determined to go to school not to cope with the entrance examination, then you don't have to worry about your child's score ranking, as long as you cultivate your child's reading and learning ability, even aesthetic and artistic accomplishment and the ability to adapt to society.

Therefore, everyone should have their own ideas and understand what is most important, such as studying, falling in love, working, making friends and making money ... Only when they know themselves and have their own goals will they not be influenced by others and blindly follow the mass line. I have a free and easy father around me, which is a free-range education model for children. He never enrolled in interest classes, did not ask his children for grades, and took them all over the country to experience the ability to adapt to society in advance. Do you think he will be less competitive in employment than those who come from famous schools in the future? Actually, not necessarily. Maybe people like them are more competitive and even easier to start their own businesses. What do you think is the ultimate goal of letting a child sharpen his head and get into a prestigious school? Isn't it just to adapt to the society and enhance his employment competitiveness? Someone has been cultivating this ability since childhood.

To avoid herd mentality, we must have our own thoughts and have a clear understanding of ourselves, so that we can firmly follow our own path, but this path is easier said than done. After all, people are social animals, and you can't get rid of the influence and guidance of people around you. However, under limited conditions, under the basic mode of pursuing the masses, we should think as much as possible about what kind of life we want, what is the most important, or what is the ultimate goal, and look at one thing from a long-term perspective. I believe we can still avoid herd mentality to some extent.