A Plateful of Crap

In the beginning, we were given a plateful of crap.

And told that to have a good life we had to add more crap to that plate. We had to; drive this car, get this education, have this body, make two and a half children, take this pill for whatever. ALL because of a thing called ‘conformity’.

At first you followed your parents – be this, do that, excel, whatever. Then our peers, remember them? The status, the cliques, the groups. Wear this, talk like this, act like this, get this. And we tried but some were better at that game and when we fell short, when we didn’t keep up, we felt like crap.

But, no matter how things turned out for us along the way, we conformed. Alcohol, drugs, addictions – just grown up forms of conformity.

We can see it now, and recognize it for what it really is. The bombardment of everyone with advertising to promote a product, a service or a way of life. All of us are a product of that commercialism. And we can view our peers now and notice what facets each of them has acquired over the years, and to what extent their belief is in them.

Rollo May said, ‘The opposite of courage in today’s society is not cowardice, but conformity.’

The reason it is mentioned here is that when one of us desires something different, to get out of a personal well-worn rut, or to even consider modifying one’s behavior in any way, our choices are severely limited to . . . only those possibilities that we have seen others try. Even as we drift into our final years we hold on to the idea of ‘fitting in’. The urge to conform – to not stand out from the group, to not embarrass ourselves in the realm of our peers, to act like everyone else – can be overwhelming.

Over and over and over again we head on down paths, ONLY IF others have gone down them before us. Most everyone assumes their lives are shaped by things that happens to them. They do things only because other people are doing those same things.

To do something ‘deliberately’ – for yourself – never happens anymore. To stand up and say, ‘This is what I am going to do’ is never heard. You’ll hear, ‘How about this’ or ‘Let’s try it that way’.

This is especially true for folks already in a group. No one be an individual and take on responsibility for for his or her actions – everything must be a group effort – or there will be no action at all.

If there has been something gnawing at you to try, take a blank-ing stab at it! Throw that plate of crap out the window and declare today as YOUR day. YOUR DAY! Not you and what’s-his or her-name, but your day. You make the call. No huddle, no asking permission, no worry, no trepidation. It’s the fourth quarter coach, time is running out. What’s the call?

Run – ‘PLAN SALLY!’ (substitute your name for Sally’s). Everyone wants to hear YOUR views, with no conformity to anything or anyone. YOUR views with just YOUR take on the situation. Feel that mandate to ask your friends or to seek out other’s approval and BREAK THROUGH! JUST DO IT! We all want to experience your freshness.

And so do You.