Musings - Why Change, Why Different

By default our culture seems to glorify 'stability' and 'conformity'. And a natural follow on is that 'change' and 'different' gets critiqued.

While many are happy to conform and do the 'right' thing, there are always those at the fringes.....those who choose to be different. And then it becomes an uphill task. There is the internal voice saying the one thing, and the external saying another.

This is cause for internal conflict.

Internal conflict causes stress, disturbance......takes away peace, productivity, creativity. A lot of our energy and time gets sucked into handling our internal conflict(s).

The feeling one sits with is  'I am not good enough'

I'm putting myself out on the line, so as to give an example. I've lived many years under tremendous internal conflict. 

I've often heard comments like : 'You're too impulsive' 'why can't you be contented' 'why would you take a chance like that'  'You're selfish, you don't think of how this could impact others' 'why do you over think things so much' 'why can't you just be happy' 

At one point (read as years on end) they would confuse me. Put me in the defensive. There was my gut telling me one thing, and there was this expectation from the outside saying another. Add in our innate need to please others, and we have not just conflict, but also 'guilt'.  

Confusion would point fingers at different spaces; at times society, at times another individual, at times my own inadequacy.

More conflict and more guilt.

Today I know different.  I know that those opinions and demands are just that..another opinion, another perspective. It's about the other. Not about me at all. Plus, that the choice of response at all times is mine.

A little clarity, and I'd have known none of those statements were even close to true. 

Impulsive? No, maybe spontaneous but not impulsive. In fact I think through my actions, each action is backed by a conscious decision..........albeit by different standards and principles. 

Not Content or Happy? It's being me that gives me happiness and joy, so I need the change to be contented and happy....you see the conflict. 

Taking risk? I'm willing to pay the price for what I want, I want to take that chance 

Overthink? I think the way 'I' think, by whose standard is this 'over ' think

Selfish? What happens to 'you need to be contented and happy, to be able to give' 

I'm going into all this, not because I want to talk about myself. It's to show how this could be true for each of us. And how external opinion and expectation can drag us down, undermine our confidence, make us feel not good enough.

And what's worse, we're as much in the perpetrators seat, as in the victims.

It's something that's worth becoming aware of.

When each of is unique in something as basic as Fingerprint and Iris, how do we think we can bucket people into standardized thought and behavior. It's inherently self defeatist.

A good question could be....why this overarching need for conformity. Why is it not apparent and acceptable that there are perspectives, more perspectives and more perspectives.

Can we please pause to.....maybe over think  ;)