Of all the considerations that plague modern man, one of the most difficult—particularly for the young—appears to be the battle between popularity and rectitude (being correct). For many, the battle may continue much further than their youth. Many seem, in point of fact, to continue to fight the battle for the majority of their days.
For myself, most of the time, I choose integrity and rectitude whenever they are available and am largely unwilling to accept popularity as a motivation to select a given course of action, pursuit or idea. That doesn’t always “work out,” since at times, the popular choices are the ones in front of my face, and, until I have the time and effort to devote to research, I choose them almost “by default.” I don’t think I am nearly alone in this.
For many folks though, I see popularity being the “winner” almost as a standard response, if not entirely so. This is the more unfortunate, since most of the time, the popular way of looking at and dealing with things is far from the best one.
On the other hand, I would issue a warning to anybody who has it in mind to select an answer, course or direction based on its correctness. If you really do the research be prepared to “suffer the consequences” of making your decisions based on correctness rather than as a result of looking at what is popular.
Bearing the aforementioned in mind, I would go on to issue yet another caveat. That would be, be prepared to be challenged. Sometimes the challenges that come will more or less be people who are “sold on” the popular being unwilling to accept that which you have determined to be correct, sometimes not.
I’m not saying you should ignore the former, just that you should consider anything they bring to the table through the “filter of” understanding that they are about and interested in what is popular. That doesn’t mean they won’t “bring something to the table” beyond what is common. For the most part though, be prepared for the disappointment of “shallow thought.”
In the case of the latter (those not “sold on” the popular), the chances are far better you’ll at least hear something that is reasonable and makes sense. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t greet their challenges with polite skepticism. It does though, mean you ought to be more readily willing to open your mind to what the person in question has to say.
The more research and consideration you have done, the less likely you will find others are to sway you away from the thing you have decided to be correct. And that will only “get worse” with age.
One of the things a good many young people fail to realize, is that old folks didn’t generally come to what they hold dear and believe strongly either by accident (though sometimes that’s the case, it’s not nearly always so), or overnight. It has taken my getting older to come to understand just how true a thing that is.
Regardless all of this, each person must make a decision (really many decisions) to seek direction based on some criteria and for my part, I see none of more worth than rectitude and integrity.
If you take no other thing from this, away from what I am saying here, take away the idea that your decisions are yours. You can try to “blame others” for what you have decided or chosen to believe, but in the long run, what you have decided and chosen is nothing more or less than your own.
Have a good day!