Conforming to success

The bus ride going in to work is a rather mundane affair - the place is filled with people keeping to themselves and heading off to making their living. It was therefore a stark contrast to see a group of three young students. All of them couldn't be more than 16yrs old. Their school bags were slung over their shoulder, shirts untucked and they were joking and laughing with one another. One of them even had a rat's tail for a hair cut! (I thought those were LONG gone). It reminded me of times gone past, but I had little time to reminisce on a bus full of ambition. Rather sadly, I looked at everyone on the bus - busy maximising their free time to check emails/listen to music/facebook before going to work. Everyone was smartly dressed - though admittedly, some more than others. Shirts were certainly tucked in and pressed; ties were, symmetry aside, largely done up. Certainly nobody I saw was sporting a rats tail, dreadlocks or a head of hair that Sideshow Bob would have been dwarfed by.

Then I stopped. Why wasn't anybody showcasing that individuality so overtly? Why were we all conforming to dressing neatly and being so clean cut? It was as though that rebellious stage in our life was left behind. Certainly how a person dresses or presents themselves has no true bearing on their abilities. Perhaps our perception of what comes across as success is built around those who are successful in the field and how they dress and act. In all my corporate life, it has been largely defined by the suit (power suit in some instances) and having conservative style - as most photo shoots of CEOs would suggest. So to emulate such a powerful formula of success one imitates those one deems to be successful. This idea perpetuates itself until this point - whereby we are a bus full of people striving for success.