[This “Individuality and Absurd Rebellion” series of posts introduces you to ideas you’ll find in Eric Maisel’s most recent book Redesign Your Mind. You can learn more about Redesign Your Mind here.]
Your individuality demands that you denounce the immoral practices in your profession. Your peers mock you and make sure that you get no business. But the outside world listens a little. Challenge bravely tackled, leading to a 9% victory.
Your individuality demands that you see for yourself what’s beyond the horizon. This leads to some excellent adventures and some terrible misadventures. You come home wiser and battered. Challenge bravely tackled, leading to a 12% victory.
Even if we do manage to persevere—to write our poems, to battle our windmills, to right some wrongs—it is not without a thousand ups and downs, countless frustrations and disappointments, and every manner of rage and dirge.
An individual accepts this reality, learns from experience, and creates her marching orders. She may spend her days in a kitchen or an office but that doesn’t mean that she isn’t marching. She is continuously choosing to be her authentic self.
Individuality demands choosing. Maybe you wonder if you ought to continue at your current job. Maybe you wonder if you should embark on a screenplay. Maybe you wonder if you should point out a wrong. How will you choose?
Not by attending a workshop. Not by visiting an astrologer. Not by seeking out a pastor. Not by reading a self-help book. Not by calling a psychic. Not by consulting a psychiatrist. You take a step to one side, face the matter, and decide.
You look to your own answers. Maybe you are not in a position to diagnose your prickly rash or to know if you’ve written an effective contract. Maybe those are questions for experts. But for life questions, you are your own expert. You decide which are the worthy actions and which are the unworthy actions. You decide what to value and how to make sense of your many often-contradictory values, values that awkwardly tumble together in real-life situations.
And you remember to serve the good. Individuals serve the good. You do not take your mandate to individuality as license to grandiosity, narcissism or naked self- interest. This isn’t so easy to accomplish, as all that greed wants to keep bubbling up. But you know what to do! Do the next right thing. That’s the ticket.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Shutterstock
