"The question isn't "Who is going to let me?"; it's "Who is going to stop me?". That's a quote by Ayn Rand. I find with Rand, people either love her or hate her. Many people point out that she was sometimes hypocritical, and use that as a reason to dismiss all that she wrote. These people fail to separate the message from the messenger.
I think that anytime you judge what you hear, you need to be able to separate the message from the messenger. Ayn Rand, in some ways, was a reprehensible person. That doesn't make what she wrote 100% incorrect. My post today isn't about Rand's philosophy. It is about the quote I started the post with. Oftentimes, we go through life afraid to do things. We are afraid to do them because we are concerned with what people might think. We end up stopping ourselves because we are afraid of what might happen. What if I fail? What would "they" think? We look for permission to do things. By looking for approval, we limit ourselves. We think: this is the way my parents did it. If I do it the same way, they will be happy with me. This is the way my friends look. If I look the same way, I will be accepted. All of this is bullshit. Yet we do it. And if we don't do it, we know many who do. Many people want to be accepted by one group, so they do things that will make them unacceptable to another... trying to fit in. As they try to fit in with one group, they try to disassociate with another group. It is sad really. We all live together. What I do, as long as it does not hurt you or your rights, should not matter. What you do, should not matter to me. And as time goes on, we see more and more of this type of behavior. At one time, tattoos were for the lower class and piercings were done by punks for their shock effect. Now, tatoos are done by the young to look hip, and by the old to pretend they are young. Multi-color hair is worn by the young to be "different" yet it all looks the same anyway. So what is my point? My point is to be who you want to be. Just make sure, you know who you want to be. Do you want to be the person people look at and say "What a freak show!"? Do you want to be the person who mars their flesh for life to fit in for the moment? Or do you want to be the person who can be themselves, with the assets God gave them and be accepted by all anyway? If your friends will only hang out with you because your hair is green and you have a nose ring, then it's likely they are not the greatest friends for you to have anyway. If your friends will only hang out with you because they see you as someone they can drink with, then maybe you need to choose your friends more wisely. Look for people who accept you for who you are. Do things because you want to do them...not because you are worried what people will think if you don't do them. Do things because you actually want to do them, not because you want to shock someone by doing it. Some of the things I said above seem to contradict each other. But do they really? The first thing you need to do is to know yourself, and why yu do or do not want to do something. Ask yourself: "Why do I like that? Why do I want to do that?" Look for the bottomline why. I think that is you use this exercise, you may find that a lot of what you do, you do for other people. Look for the deepest why. It will help you to make the right decision for you.
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