Uncommon Sense: The Courage to Diverge

Have you ever caught yourself thinking, “If they aren’t ethical, why should I be?” It’s a seductive logic. If the politician is corrupt, why should I pay my taxes? If my teacher says one thing and does another, why should I follow the rule? We tether our morality to the behavior of others, letting our ethics float on a foundation that isn’t ours.

This was a lesson I learned early. When I was young, I had a teacher who would wake us for morning prayers and then sneak away to sleep. I called my mother, indignant. “What a fraud!” I declared. “If he sleeps, I sleep too.”

She listened, and then asked me a simple question: “If someone teaches you the sky is blue, and then one day they paint it red, does that make the sky red?”

No. That is their perception, their painting. “If getting up for prayers, taking a cold bath, following the morning ritual—if that is good,” she said, “then you do it because it is good. You don’t stop because someone else stops.”

Then she gave me an image I’ve never forgotten: “If he jumps in a well, will you jump too? What if he spent his life telling everyone not to jump, and then one day he jumped? Would you follow him then, thinking, ‘Maybe he knows a secret?’”

Her point was profound: Don’t mind another’s business. Do your dharma. Stay on your track.

That childhood logic—if he sleeps, I sleep—is innocent. But it snowballs. Soon, you’re not paying taxes because politicians are corrupt. You’re cutting corners because others do. Your actions become reactions, dependent on the world’s noise. You become a person on a floating foundation. If others are good, you’re good; if they’re bad, you’re bad. Then what are you? Where is your character? Where is your unique fingerprint?

This is the core of the issue. We are not meant to be echoes. Every one of us carries highly personal signatures- fingerprints, retinal patterns, even DNA-that are distinctive enough to identify us with remarkable confidence. We are, biologically and spiritually, one in a billion. So why do we spend our lives trying to match? Why do we sand down our edges to fit the common mold?

Look at education. As parents, we flock to the “best” schools, believing that if our child walks the same path as the “successful” ones, they too will succeed. But in doing so, in feeding them into a system designed to produce averages, aren’t we erasing their fingerprint? Aren't we trading uniqueness for uniformity?

I’ve seen the alternative. I witnessed a homeschooled boy give a Tedx talk in a school auditorium. While the world obsesses over slick PowerPoints, he had sketched his presentation with a simple stylus on his phone. To some, it might have looked “pathetic.” But he projected it with such clarity and confidence that it became a new art. His analogies were fresh, his perspective entirely his own. Those students were captivated. They took notes, they flocked to him afterwards. He didn’t match their template; he showed them a new one.

That is the power of an un-erased fingerprint.

So we must ask: if our fingerprints are uncommon, why is our sense so common?

“Common sense” is just what the average agrees upon. But if you are one in a billion, your sense should be uncommon. To use common sense is to sacrifice your uniqueness. It is to voluntarily blur the very lines that make you, you.

The journey, then, is two fold.

First, anchor your ethics to your own foundation. My mother’s lesson applies everywhere. Regardless of the corrupt politician, the bad roads, the misused funds—my dharma is to pay my taxes. That is my duty. My action is an expression of my own integrity. If I see a problem, my duty isn’t to join the problem; it’s to work harder. To not only fulfill my role but to build a community where others can anchor themselves, too.

Second, nourish your uncommon sense. Your uniqueness is not confined to your fingerprint . You embody uniqueness. It’s in your mind, your ideas, your way of seeing ....

Therefore your true value lies not in how well you conform, but in how bravely you diverge. We must question what “everyone knows.” We must protect that unique spark—in ourselves, in our children, in each other.

When we hold fast to our identity, we don’t become a society of clones, but a symphony of distinct voices. We can work together not because we are the same, but because our unique contributions create something no average ever could.

So, let us not jump into the well because others do, or sleep because the teacher sleeps. Let us look at the blue sky they call red, and know our own truth. Let us draw our shaky, unique sketches with confidence. Let us build our foundation on solid ground, and upon it, let the one-in-a-billion masterpiece that is you, stand tall.