You Can Go Your Own Way

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It's kind of fun to go your own way.

To create your own path.

Follow the road less traveled.

Create your own adventure.

A friend of mine told me that it takes courage to break away from tradition and do your own thing. I never thought of it that way. For me, doing my own thing has felt like second nature, I just do it because it feels right. Yes, part of me does care what everyone else thinks because that's the way I've been taught, but if there's something I really want to do, I'll do it.

I've always thought that letting someone else's opinions or thoughts stop you from doing something that you really want to do was stupid. What's the worst they can do, judge you?!

There's a quote I found on Sue Fitzmaurice's Facebook page www.facebook.com/suefitzmauriceauthor which resonates strongly with me.

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It makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

How many times have you walked down the street and seen someone doing or wearing something you wouldn't consider 'ordinary'? How did you react?

Whenever I see someone wearing something outrageous I let it give me permission to wear something just as outrageous because it's really quite fun. Doing something a little crazy every now and again wakes you up, makes you feel alive. 

When I first saw the above quote, it made me think of all the nasty things people said and did to me throughout my childhood and through to teen years. To put it simply, I was misunderstood.

Everyone else is trying so hard to fit in at a cost to themselves most of the time. I tried fitting in and found that I felt worse for doing so because it wasn't with the right crowd, but at the time, that was all I had. There were a few friends I was close to that stood out from the pack in their own way and we all forged friendships from that. From my experience, the best crowd to get caught up in is the one where it doesn't take effort to fit in, you just do, and it feels great to do so.

Whenever I see groups of people, usually younger generations, hanging out, they never really seem to be all that happy. There's usually a leader and their sidekick, then everyone else just hangs around them silently as if waiting for orders or just playing with their phones for lack of anything else to do.

Thinking back to the times when I was caught in an awkward small talk situation at school or church, which wasn't an uncommon occurrence, it's laughable now. You just stand there, looking around, fidgeting with your clothes or whatever either waiting for someone to say something or for something interesting to happen, in the meantime you glance around to see what everyone else is doing and just stare at them if it's more exciting that what you're doing.

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Sheep. Bored sheep at that.

My strongest memories from youth group and school are the times when I didn't join in with the rest of the group and they just stared at me silently judging me for not doing so. I hated the feeling, but it would have been worse if I sat with them and felt it. At least as soon as I was out of eyesight I wouldn't have to worry about it so much.

See most of the cliquey girls had been friends from early childhood. Whilst I'd know some of them since that age, growing up with worldly influences in a religious environment didn't earn me many brownie points with them. Instead I was looked at like some kind of a freak as you'd expect from small-minded people who are scared of things or people that are different.

As hard as it is for a great number of people to actually be who they are instead of who they think they should be, it is by far the most liberating and gratifying thing you will ever do for yourself. Well that's been my experience anyway. When trying to be comfortable in your own skin, places less importance on whether other people will accept you for it and more importance on how happy you feel about being true to yourself.

Going your own way is the best way to go.

(Photo credit to stevenaitchison.co.uk)