How often do you follow the crowd?

On following new trends like the sheep that I am

It’s important to know yourself, to be aware of your own biases and weaknesses. To realise when you’re being the worst version of yourself. To understand why you get red in the face and hear a weird humming noise in your ears when you see your partner’s socks inside out and lying on the floor. I was going to say that’s too niche but actually, I think it’s a pretty universal experience. 

I know I am an absolute sheep. I have a friend who ranks people by what they’d be doing come the revolution (throwing Molotov cocktails from the barricades scores somewhere near the top, those making deals with the enemy for self-protection rank the lowest). I know myself. I would be cowering with the rest of the huddled masses. The majority, if you will. The people neither brave nor malicious enough to be at either end of the spectrum. The people doing nothing. 

I follow the crowd in most situations, and not just in theoretical revolutions. A star tattoo on my hand (I need you to know this was well before Lindsay Lohan), smoking cigarettes at 13 because the boys did. You know how teachers used to say “if X jumped off a cliff, would you follow them?” For me, the answer would be, yeah probably, if they were cool enough. If I am informed of a trend by people I admire, you best believe I’m hopping on that bandwagon as fast as my little legs will allow me. It can be anything - a new book, an article, a fashion edict, a new fitness challenge. Off I go, much too late to be able to smugly claim to be an early adopter, ready to hop on.