Tag: morality

Cultivate Your Garden

submitted by jwithrow.Lotus Garden

This essay is written for those who feel that our society has lost its way.

We see a world in which the collectivist rat race has suppressed minds and spirits. Selfishness and corruption have replaced kindness and honesty. Humility and grit have been replaced by a culture of irresponsibility and instant gratification.

Turn on your preferred news channel and they will be quick to point their collective finger at some group or another and tell you all about how everything is their fault. Now turn off your television and ask your inner self who is really at fault.

Guess what, dear friend? It’s your fault.

Before we can ever expect to see an honest and just society, we must first foster honour and justice within ourselves. We must stop pointing our fingers at others and begin to cultivate our own garden.

Most people are terrified of being different so they attempt to “fit in” at all times. Most people go along to get along so they conform to the status-quo in society. But if you set a shining example of humility, kindness, honesty, and responsibility then others will be encouraged by your example. There is universal truth in the old adage that says “actions speak louder than words”.

I will leave you with the following quote, written by an unknown monk around 1100 A.D.:

“When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.
I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation.
When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.
Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family.
My family and I could have made an impact on our town.
Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.”

Avoiding the Identity Trap

submitted by jwithrow.Identity Trap

The identity trap is the belief that you need to conform to what others think that you should be. It is when you feel the need to speak or act a certain way because other people think that you should speak or act that way. It is when you participate in an event or join an organization because others expect you to do so.

While these other people who expect you to conform to certain expectations are typically well-intentioned, you are doing yourself a disservice if you allow yourself to be pressured into the identity trap. Your life will not be harmonious if you are not true to your own inner self.

People, often subconsciously, do not see others as individuals but rather they see others as members of a particular group. They then assume that the other person holds all of the associated group’s beliefs and traits and thus they expect the other person to speak and act accordingly. But everyone is a unique individual and groups are comprised of individuals.

Individuals have a responsibility to themselves to do what they think is right at all times. Individuals have a responsibility to stay true to their beliefs and principles. Individuals do not have a responsibility to put on a façade because other people expect them to be something other than themselves. Falling into and remaining stuck in the identity trap is an impediment to your personal freedom. You can never be free if you must pretend to be something that you are not.

Harry Browne, in How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World, laid out four specific principles to recognize in order to avoid the identity trap. They are as follows:

1. You are a unique individual — different from all other human beings. No one else has the exact same nature that you have; no one else reacts to things in exactly the way you do. No one else sees the world exactly as you do. No one can dictate what your identity should be; you are the best qualified person to discover what it is.

2. Each individual is acting from his own knowledge in ways he believes will bring him happiness. He acts to produce the consequences he thinks will make him feel better.

3. You have to treat things and people in accordance with their own identities in order to get what you want from them. You don’t expect a stone to be a fish. And it’s just as unrealistic to expect one person to act as someone else does. You don’t control the identities of people, but you can control how you deal with them.

4. You view the world subjectively — colored by your own experience, interpretation, and limits of perception. It isn’t essential that you know the final truth about everything in the world; and you don’t have the resources to discover it.

Avoid the identity trap and realize your true individual potential.