I want to be an individual, just like all my friends!
1. You assume everything is going to be okay.
Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds; for riches do not endure forever and a crown is not secure for all generations. Proverbs 27:23-24
“We don’t acknowledge the truth that things aren’t always going to be okay. Instead, we drift along with this mentality of inevitable triumph, regardless of the signs telling us otherwise. And we reinforce this (false) idea in each other.”
And what happens when we simply parrot the same false sense of security back and forth to each other?
- We put our trust in things that aren’t trustworthy.
- We feel victimized when bad things happen.
- We don’t change the things we could change because we’ve forgotten about personal responsibility.
Acknowledging that everything is not going to be okay doesn’t mean preaching doom and gloom. It means staring reality straight in the face, understanding that life is tough, and then finding
true riches, peace, and freedom in spite of the bad things.
2. You put comfort and convenience over true value.
“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” -C.S. Lewis
We’re all mostly confused about what’s really valuable. We tend to strain after things that don’t matter – new playstation, more food, better car, bigger house, bigger paycheck, latest phone – because they add comfort and convenience to our life. And we like to be comfortable. Mmmm, it feels good. Comfort’s not bad, at all. I am thankful for indoor plumbing, air conditioning, and my favorite pair of jeans. But comfort is not a measure of true value.
Neither is convenience. But how many decisions do we make based on proximity (“I’ll date him because he’s always around.”) or ease (“I’ll take this job because I know I can do it.”) rather than actual worth? I suggest we all pull out our old Gold’s Gym t-shirts and bring the “No Pain, No Gain” motto back to life. Some good things come easy. Some worthwhile things are comfortable. But the comfort and convenience are bonus points; if you measure value by those factors, you’ll end up with a cheap, useless, unsatisfying life.
3. You replace creating with accumulating.
“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly; ’tis dearness only that gives everything its value.” -Thomas Paine
An industry that simply didn’t exist say, oh, 50 years ago is
this one, which includes clutter management, time management, professional organization consultations, and a
myriad of supporting products.
In a free market economy like the one we have, [please no economic tirades, I'm simply generalizing] supply and demand determine success or failure. If there were no demand for the services of decluttering professionals, there would be a teensy supply of them. But there are lots. On the other hand, when was the last time you saw a shoe repair shop? There are still a few around. But not many.
Consider this (obvious) correlation: as our need to find repair services for quality products goes down, our need to find professional decluttering help goes up. Why? We buy more disposable products, they break, and we can’t use them anymore. So we buy a new disposable product but, too often, we don’t get rid of the old, broken one. We simply keep accumulating.
We don’t make, we shop. We don’t use, we hoard. We don’t create, we accumulate. It’s an expensive inversion of our natural desire to have what we need. Instead of the excess of accumulation, though, we need to disconnect from the shopping culture enough to quit accumulating so much culture. Then we’ll know what we have, so we can use it when we need it and get rid of it if we don’t.
4. You let others define your values.
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. -Thomas Jefferson
A value is “an ideal accepted by some individual or group” (
WordNet) and “is a foundation upon which other values and measures of integrity are based” (
Wikipedia).
Defining your own values means thinking through your core beliefs, setting aside
the false standards of comparison, and deciding for yourself what matters, what doesn’t, and why. The end result of defining your own values is the ability to be happy.
Marci at
Overcoming Busy talked about this quality in her grandmothers: “My grandmothers lived the life they had been given – and they did it very well. I never heard them complain about the endless laundry or cooking. I remember my Grandma J smiling as she hung loads of clothes out on the line and humming as she ironed.”
That’s the key. Marci’s grandmothers weren’t busy comparing their lives, desires, and abilities with Neighbor Jones or Little Bessie Mae who ran off to New York City. They made their own choices, defined their own values, and then got to live in the peace of that independence, doing their daily work with joy instead of envy, resentment, or disillusionment. It’s pretty hard to be happy about your own life when you’ve defined your values by someone else’s system.
5. You judge by the lowest common denominator.
“Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.” -Mahatma Gandhi
If you drop just one of these follow-the-crowd habits, make it this one: that evil, self-defeating habit of looking around, finding the worst example of what you could be, and then thinking, “Hmmmm, well I’m doing better than that so I must be okay.”
Stick with that habit if you want a guaranteed unremarkable life. But if you want to do anything more than run
in the middle of the pack, you need to quit settling for the being the least you can be and start quoting the Army motto to yourself. [No, not the "army of one" motto. What does that even mean?]
Be
all that you can be. Not all that your friend, cousin, sister, neighbor is (or isn’t) choosing to be. Not the lowest level possible. Quit basing your standards on the crummiest example you can find, just so you can feel like you’re doing a good job. Go get some fatigues and live up to your own internal standards. Then maybe you’ll start raising the lowest common denominator and we’ll all start being a little bit more.
How are you going to quit following the crowd today?
- I’m going to acknowledge okay is not a given and personal responsibility matters.
- I’m going to quit using comfort and convenience as the measure of what I truly value.
- I’m going to do less accumulating and more creating.
- I’m going to define my own values and live my own life.
- I’m going to stretch myself to be more than what I see around me.
Image courtesy of
Scott Ableman.
photo credit:
Victor Bezrukov
