“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”~Dr.Seuss
I am of the mind that I am the one who has to live with myself, regardless of whatever anyone else thinks or has to say about it. That I am the one who has to make discerning choices about my thoughts, my words, my actions, and my life. Not because they are right for anyone else, but because they are right for me.
Naturally, as a result of my feeling this way, I have run into problems with other people. I have wondered why….since I was a small child, I have had a clear notion that being curious was natural and that having room and permission to ponder reality was something that was my birthright. I wondered why other people did not like it that I thought for myself. Many years of therapy and life experience later, I am starting to understand that lots of people don’t like to think/feel for themselves, and therefore don’t feel comfortable when someone else does not play by the rules of conformity.
I know it takes a lot of courage to be a non-conformist. To even contemplate change and self-improvement, to challenge one’s own thoughts and feelings, and to reflect and examine oneself requires honesty and a pretty good bit of spine. I haven’t met a lot of folks who are willing to do this. I know they exist because I have been blessed to meet a few of them, and the great works of authors and brilliant thinkers that I seek out to read and be inspired by exist. But in everyday life, I don’t run across a lot of folks I can say are seekers to the extent that I am.
Sometimes I drive myself crazy….I have always been a question asker. Why are things the way they are? What makes the universe tick? Who am I, and is who I am just what people say I am? How did this (any) situation come into being? Where do I come from, and where am I going? As a result of asking LOTS of questions from as early as I can remember, I get a lot of answers. But it is never enough. There will always be another question.
Maybe the fact that I am a question asker and a challenger of status quo is annoying to others (it IS). Maybe the fact that I choose to honor myself by allowing the questions to be asked, and the answers to come, and to trust those inner answers is also threatening to some (IT IS). Tough.
It is my belief and understanding that there are many roads to the end destination, whatever that may be. It’s my understanding that all roads are valid, too. I don’t believe that there is any one right way to do things, but I do believe that honoring oneself as a source of wisdom is an honorable and truthful way to go; I don’t believe in doing things or thinking things or believing things just because we are told to, or expected to. To me, everything in all of existence is up for self-examination.
I have watched people from all degrees on the spectrum, whether “conservative” or “liberal”, “republican” or “democrat”, “capitalist” or “environmentalist”, “criminal” or “moral pillar of society”….I have personally seen all points of view be in danger of becoming hardened and lose personal meaning because people give their power away to the belief itself instead of feelign whether the belief continues to be true for them, moment to moment.
And I have watched people become so aligned in a belief that they think it should be the right belief for everybody.
As long as we judge each other, as long as we think the world would be a better place if only it would conform to our beliefs, the world will remain in a state of conflict. There will never be peace of earth as long as we think that others are wrong for the way they think or believe. I suppose that peace will only occur when there is room allowed for individuals to feel for themselves what is right for them and not be judged for it.
Dr. Suess was a wise man, in my humble estimation. The people that love unconditionally, meaning they hold a space of non-judgment and acceptance for others, are the folks I want to hang out with in my life. They are the ones that matter to me because they are taking the courageous path of listening inside to their inner compass to decide what feels right to them. The people that don’t like it that I think for myself, do what feels right to ME, are the ones that don’t matter. I don’t much value what they think. If they would ask me NOT to be myself in order to make them feel safe or to take care of them emotionally, then they are not the type of person that I respect and look up to in the world.
Anyone who would ask me to be different in order to make them feel safe is not only asking me to diminish myself, but they are not taking the courageous path to examine WHY they need me to change in order to feel safe. What is happening inside of themselves that is creating this feeling and desire to be taken care of by another? Why does their happiness depend on something outside of themselves?
I will not diminish myself to placate or please anyone; I choose to surround myself with people in my life who honor my need to be uniquely me. All else, bless them, don’t matter.
“Compliance causes a shocking realization:
To be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others,
and yet, to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves.“
-Clarissa Pinkola Estes
