I woke up on New Year's Day in a rather conventional manner: lungs recovering from high exposure to secondhand smoke, wallet empty, choked back tequila aftertaste, and a head full of hope. It was a completely new disposition for me. There were no resolutions for change and betterment; only ends and beginnings.

I thought that this was my own revelation. I imagined everyone else was hurrying to find ways to better themselves: joining gyms, throwing out their bottles of alcohol and packs of cigarettes, and penciling their families and friends into their busy schedules. But, I realized that I was wrong.

Like animals, humans have set behavioral patterns. For example, cats have their own personalities: some are wild and anti-social, some love human attention, some are afraid of heights…but ultimately, they all act in a certain way. They play in the same way, they all bury their excrement, they all learn how to clean themselves even when there is no adult cat to teach them. They are inherently conditioned to behave as cats.

With the Internet allowing people to connect from all over the world, we are more aware of our world, more knowledgeable about other cultures and nationalities, more open (in most cases) to differences between us, and more willing to help.  It has made the world a smaller place and has made me reassess my own uniqueness.

Being a diehard for the movie Fight Club, I never considered myself to be truly unique; however, I did assume that I had my own quirkiness that separated me from everyone else. This assumption was soon shattered while scrolling through various Facebook groups. Things that I considered to be uniquely me, things that I had thought only I did had groups with over a million followers. Things such as constantly calling my mum even though I didn't need her for anything; making animal noises in shopping malls and laughing at strangers who turn around; and thinking, as a little girl, that the moon followed me wherever I went.

We are all different, yet we are all the same. If nothing else, knowing this makes stand-up comedy easier.

Tharuna Devchand