I have been watching myself and others for the past 24 hours and this is what I learned.
The places that I went in the last 24 hours were ( hand-picked )
- Train between Trichur and Bangalore
- British library at Bangalore
- Medical store at Ulsoor
- Metro train from library to my home
- ITPL ( place where I work )
Now let me explain what happened at each of those places
1. Train between Trichur and Bangalore – I boarded the train and on my way to my berth I would have seen more than 25 faces. Hardly anyone noticed me. When I finallly sat at my seat, one person was staring at me ( which is very common here ) and I smiled back. There was some water leaking from someone’s bag, he got up, looked at me and told me what I already know, that is, the bag is leaking. Until I got down at Bangalore, for most people in that train, I was non-existent !
2. British library at Bangalore – the only guy I talk at the library, the security guy at the door, asked me why I haven’t visited the library for so long. As one might expect from a library, hardly anyone even looked up or saw me
3. Medical store at Ulsoor – the guy at the store was in a hurry to give my medicine and send me back home. He hurriedly gave me what I wanted since there were multiple people waiting for medicines, in that store
4. Metro train from library to my home : same as above
5. ITPL ( the place I work ) : Strangely, most of my colleagues weren’t even aware that I was out of office for nearly a week. I would have probably seen 2 or 3 people and we talked about work
The reason I highlighted these was because, I noticed this fact that, we often spend a lot of time in front of the mirror and constantly worrying about what others might think of your appearance while we venture outside. We try to be aware of the way we walk, our posture, our appearance, attire make sure that we present ourselves in the best possible way. I realized that NONE of these actually matter. In all the 5 scenarios, I mentioned above ( except for office, where my absence would ring several bells, since work might go incomplete ) me being present or not present does not make an iota of difference. I was almost invisible in the eyes of 100s of people I saw in the last 24 hours.
This has become a BIG eye opener for me.