Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
We live in a society of advice columns, experts and make-over shows. Without even knowing it, you can begin to believe someone knows better than you how to live your life. Someone might know a particular something better – like how to bake a three-layer molten coconut chocolate cake or how to build a website – but nobody else on the planet knows how to live your life better than you. (Although one or two people may think they do.) For today, trying asking yourself often, especially before you make a choice, “What do I know about this?”
(Author: Jen Louden)
What do any of us definitively know about anything?
Every so often I’ll meet someone a few years younger than myself and feel intimidated. Not because I particularly feel old or of any less ability, but because this person has so much confidence.I think to myself “Wow, this person has it all together, and has it all figured out!”
Now clearly he or she doesn’t. I mean, who does?
It’s the self-assuredness that pulls me in. The ability to know oneself and be strong enough to independently make decisions without taking into consideration the opinions of others or permission from society at-large. Fake it until ya make it!
I wish I knew that years ago.
Why seek approval from others? It’s not right to be a slave to those opinions – it’s a time-suck and waste of energy. With that said, it’s important to get the facts right and parse things logically to make the choice.
I try to regularly ask myself:
1. What is the essence of this situation?
2. What are the facts, outside of my own opinion on the matter?
3. What do I now know about this situation that I didn’t know before?
3. What’s my gut instinct?
4. What would we like the outcome to be?
Questions like these can help identify “what we know” and how we can make decisions in an independent way.
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