It’s our right and responsibility as a Western community to challenge social norms. This involves societal limits being crossed, and sometimes it’s our task to cross them. This isn’t a call to disobey rules or establishments; instead, it’s a call to think about why we obey them, or why we often blindly follow preset paths. This idea of “reality” is basically the fantasy world that we create for ourselves in our mind. This can be challenged, and should be for a healthy democracy and society.

The “common sense of culture” is a set of ideas we can either agree with or disagree with. It’s our choice. The main point, however, is recognizing the cultural influences (one of many parts of our ideologies) in the first place. In any given country, the ideology is always unique and equally strange no matter where you are. In the Western world, we might not think twice about the things we’ve been trained to think or do inadvertently. Why is four years of college the social norm? Have you even thought about that? If I tell someone I’m going to college for two years they might think I’m a slacker. If I tell someone it took me seven years to complete my undergrad, they might think I’m slow, regardless of knowing me at all. This is just one example of a social norm-forming preconceptions. We have to wear shoes everywhere and naturally form lines whenever we want to buy something. I understand the importance of these social ideologies. They’ve been established for the benefit of our communities. However, some of the things we don’t think twice about operate a heck of a lot differently abroad. Political ideology is so heavily observed because every American executive administration has been involved (big or small) with the spread of democracy around the world. We’re aware of ideological anomalies because they’re shepherded into our mainstream media all the time. But there is something very concrete about a lot of ways that we think about things.

Sometimes we break out of our own “reality” because of idyllic anomalies, such as grotesque scenes that bypass our fantasy filters. For instance, we attend a funeral, talk about what the deceased accomplished in life, and realize, maybe just internally, that a majority of our daily tasks are actually questionable. It usually doesn’t take long to snap back into our “reality,” but in those moments, we learn an incredible amount about ourselves. The challenge with questioning your thought processes can really be applied to anything, and I would argue that any time we trace our actions back to their origins, we make sure that we’re acting for the right reasons instead of just what everyone else is doing around us. Often you’ll find that you’re acting for the right reasons, which is fantastic. But it’s even better when you can challenge yourself to make healthy social change on your own accord instead of the actions of those around you. I challenge you to rethink, and even if nothing really changes, your freedom to choose is still enhanced!