Following your own path regardless

When I was young, I made an effort to find myself, express myself and to be different. It became something to be proud of but eventually I realized that the pride was just an excuse for arrogance. I got off on feeling special.

The last decade I’ve slowly learned to stop feeding this arrogance.

I no longer make an effort to be different and I will try to be more in line with others when it’s comfortable or feels good or balanced now. No need to intentionally rock the boat when the boat doesn’t need rocking though.

I find the boat often does need rocking though or that perhaps the boat is going in the wrong direction and I must find or make my own boat if the larger boat doesn’t course correct

I find myself naturaly going the opposite way of the herd, not even planning to or thinking about it.

You can see this in tiny details of my life that are not planned at all. I commute outside the city instead of from the outside in. My work starts after everyone and ends before them, I have a long break and then I start work again. I travel on the off seasons and frequent social setting and restaurants when they are the least crowded.

None of this came out of any effort, I am merely living life at my own pace and with my own rhythm and naturally this happens.

While everyone is coming to the city to earn more money snd network, i’ve been building my work online so that I can spend time outside the city. Everyone wants to buy an apartment in the city center and when i buy one it will certainly be in the country.

I buy crypto when everyones selling and sell when everyone is buying. I find new art and music before its popular and lose interest or move on by the time it’s become popular. I have thoughts and ideas 5-10 years before they become popular.

I don’t think I am smarter or more advanced than anyone and I no longer look down on people for living their so-called normal lifes but I can’t help but feel a good 30-40% of them would live very different lives if they followed their hearts.

It always comes back to the question, are you living out of love or out of fear? I ask myself two questions to answer this: “Am I becoming the person I want to become?” And “Am I having as much fun as I can have following this particular path?” whether it’s a path I’ve chosen or a path I am stuck on.

If it’s fun, and its moving towards a better me, then it’s love. If it feels like shit and if I am constantly doubting myself or wishing I was somewhere else, it’s fear.

I believe there is a kind of law of osmosis. If we follow our hearts, we tend to act a bit different from everyone rlse, not because they are doing it wrong, but because we naturally expand and expansion brings us further from the center, or here what we might call the mainstream. Often people get caught in other streams, but the more we expand, the more we become something completely unique.

This is actually a huge benefit if we can manage it well, to become unique is to become irreplaceable and truly valuable to this world. When things become too saturated, the benefit becomes more and more dilluted as the competition becomes greater.

It doesnt mean we should seek uniqueness for it’s own sake, althoguh experimentation can help us discover our true callings. Obviously there are smart experiments and not so smart experiments. There are risky and less risky experiments, and as long as we arent physically hurting anyone or ourselves and we aren’t forcing anyone to do something they want to do, nothing shiuld be off limits.

For me it was an attempt to live without money and trust the universe, backpacking, busking, and wandering around a relatively safe part of the world. For some people it’s a new career, learning to live sustainably or creating or learning something completely outside the path they have been on or perhaps something the people around then don’t understand. Usually they won’t.

To be on your own path and to not follow the herd can be full of times where you doubt yourself but every thing can be a learning experience and if we learn as much as we can from all that happens to us, there are no mistakes. Eventually we find any path we take is essentially the right path.

We climb the mountain because it is there to climb and in the end, we are glad that we climbed it.

Novels/music/merch/social media/patreon:

https://linktr.ee/selfhelp4trolls

Untangled Knots podcast:
Japanese Upbringing Explained (interview my Japanese student)

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Confessions of the Damaged 1.1-1.3 on Amazon