Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re not one of the masses. You see yourself as unique. You choose to do things differently. What you want out of life is different from the norm.
But with that kind of thinking comes a subtle feeling of uncertainty, angst, and worry.
Is what I want to do “right”? Why isn’t anybody else thinking this way? Maybe I’m wrong.
It can be a bit unsettling.
Why is that little voice there?
What is that?
If we can get a better understanding of this, it will definitely make it easier for us to break away from the crowd and to do our own thing.
The first alarm bell you’re feeling is a literal survival alarm bell. Anytime we contemplate breaking free from the crowd, that alarm goes off. It’s a built in safety mechanism by mother nature.
If other people on your tribe aren’t eating that bright colored mushroom in the forest, maybe you shouldn’t either. You don’t know why, but you don’t eat it and that’s good because some of those bright colored mushrooms are poisonous, so in that sense, following the crowd IS a good thing.
It’s when you make it an absolute rule that gets you into trouble.
The second level is you’re literally fighting the social constructs of mother nature. If everybody just did whatever they wanted, everything would be all over the place. There’d be chaos so to keep everybody in line, mother nature created social enforcement mechanisms so that certain behaviors would not be looked too kindly upon and to avoid being perceived and treated negatively, you had to go along with the rules. If you choose to do something different, you would risk being punished by being cut off from the tribe, which greatly diminishes your chances of survival.
So the first two alarm bells are literally about survival in the sense of how things worked back then.
Now here’s the final level and the level most people feel stung by.
Other people attacking their choices.
Ironically, the people attacking may feel the need to break away from the crowd, but are too afraid to do it, so in order to feel better about their decision of sticking with the crowd, they attack others who choose to break away from the crowd, so that more numbers are on their side so they feel like they made the right choice.
Now note this is not ALL people, but a good chunk of them.
Let’s use a modern day example to illustrate this.
A lot of people these days are choosing not to have children and it’s started up a heck of a war.
Let’s see the alarm bells go off when a person decides to become childfree.
Level 1 – Survival. Yes, children were needed for survival back in the day. You needed more hands on the farm and the community needed more people to defend themselves or attack other tribes to gain more resources but we now live in a day and age where kids are not relevant to our survival so knowing this can help neutralize this level of angst.
Level 2 – Mother nature needs to continue the human species so it needs to create social enforcement mechanisms to ensure kids keep coming out. Those who have children are “good” people, get certain benefits of society like status, and those who don’t have children are looked down upon or pitied or shunned.
Level 3 – People calling you selfish for not having kids (can’t understand that argument), what’s wrong with you, who will take care of you when you’re old (isn’t this selfish?), etc. Some of these people may feel bad about their decision of having kids and want others to have them so they’re all on the same boat, but on the other hand, some people have kids and it’s a great experience so they would like others to have that experience as well and that’s ok.
The common thing to see about level 3 is that people are projecting from themselves.
It has nothing to do with you.
When you see through those attempts with that lens, you can better understand where they’re coming from and if they can’t see it, well, you have to feel sorry for them because they’re not conscious of what they’re doing.
To them, your actions may feel like you’re attacking their lifestyle but reassure them that you’re not and that you’re simply making a choice and nobody can make that choice but you.
If there’s something that still bugs you, then ask yourself:
Why would you value the opinion others have of you over the opinion you have of yourself?
Why give that power away?
All this will help the inevitable anxiety that comes from breaking away from the crowd.
Simply by putting a label on our angst and understanding where it comes from, it greatly reduces it so we feel better equipped to take the road less traveled.
