Wind of the Soul

A topic near and dear to my heart is the idea of people marching to the beat of their own drum. Despite what’s deemed the norm, and often times in spite of it, certain individuals manage to carve out their own unique ways of living, thinking and being. They’ve long since thrown off what’s considered acceptable by society’s standards and they live their lives by tuning into an inner calling and an awareness of what’s right for them.

In my opinion this is one of the fastest ways to become a fully self actualized human being. Self actualization is about more than establishing an identity. It’s about living intentionally and feeling wholeness and a fulfilled happiness that’s not dependent upon things or others. But, it’s simultaneously the recognition that material items and relationships can enhance your experience. However, they by no means have any bearing on your self sufficient state of joy and the knowledge of who you are.

Now, what prevents the majority from following cerebral and physical pursuits that embrace the ideas of wholeness and contentment in their being? In many cultures, societies, and even among family structures, there are two areas which seem to impede such pioneering ways: social regulations and social pressure.

The fascinating thing is societies with strong rules, regulations and laws seem to be a slightly better “breeding” ground for individuals that are willing to question where their sense of self is being derived from. Under these strict conditions, people will begin to become more introspective and doubt the powers that be (at least privately). This line of thinking lends itself to creating a more in tune individual. Citizens in harshly regulated societies are forced into adopting the status quo due to fear of reprisal. And while physically, they abide by the regulations, mentally they withdraw from the external claptrap and propaganda.

In societies where social pressure seems to be more dominant than social regulations, many people appear less likely to think for themselves and are more willing to adopt the group think mentality. People under intense social pressure conform initially out of fear of being rejected and meeting with verbal criticism. Over time the fear of being chastised and ostracized wanes. They eventually give in to the pressure and start mimicking and enforcing the “correct” lifestyle right alongside everyone else.

Many western cultures, like the United States for example, obviously have their laws and regulations, yet they also seem to have excellent conditions for cultivating severe social pressures. I believe much of this stems from the access we have to larger amounts of material resources than many other countries.

This access causes an obvious delineation between the haves and the have not’s. The wider the gap becomes, the greater the strain on the fabric of society. As we begin paying more attention to what we have and don’t have (in comparison to others), than we do to who we are and how we can help one another- we succumb to social pressure.

In this nation, social pressure leads people to engage in activities they would never dream of if they were more in tune with their true selves. You don’t have to look very far to locate someone who’s willing to do unnecessary things to their body, simply to try and please someone else.

From Botox to implants, to living on drugs that aid sexual performance, we are selling ourselves out in an attempt to locate an external form of happiness. And that doesn’t even begin to address what we do to one another and our world in the pursuit to acquire more and more material items.

I know many people fear the direction our nation is going; especially in view of some of the ways we’ve relinquished personal freedoms. However, as long as we are willing to continue playing many of the materialistic, mindless games we’ve been engaging in, government has no need to enforce stricter laws and regulations. We’re already censoring and restricting our true selves for them.

Social pressures are one of the strongest forms of control western nations have over their citizens. The sad thing is we continue to perpetuate that control with very little prompting. We line up willingly.

We’re either killing ourselves to look good or to artificially feel good (via drugs, alcohol, tobacco, food addictions, shopping addictions, sex addictions, etc.). Either way, both types of extreme behaviors originate from a place of physical self loathing and a lack of removing the pressure to always perform and to have more.

In the process, we’ve forgotten to just be. In being, we quiet the external stimuli and we search within; bringing ourselves to a point of knowing instead of a place of mimicking, reaching, guessing, and stumbling.

I don’t believe there’s a thing wrong with having nice material possessions or wanting to look good, or feel good (real happiness, not the artificial kind). The problem resides in the over identification of who we are with these things. Once we learn to relate to our value as solely residing in our appearance, what we own, what we can ingest, or who we can score with; we have succumbed to the very social pressure that strips us of actualization.

We can become so submersed in living in this manner; we never recognize there’s something more. This can go on for years until we wake up one day to an empty shell of a life with very little depth or substance. This is a sure sign we’ve neglected the portion of ourselves that fuels our experience. It’s still there, but it’s stunted.

When we quit doing for the sake of trying to measure up and we start being for the sake of discovering real happiness and wholeness; we will have made an important shift. This conscious shift will take us from living accidentally through social pressure to living intentionally through the knowledge of the inner self.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 10th, 2008 at 5:12 pm and is filed under Health and Well Being, Inspiration, Self-Help, Spiritual Empowerment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.