Solitude standing – thinking for yourself
Its pretty easy to follow the herd. It takes no real effort – just watch the same shows, do the same things, live the same life and make the same decisions. In short, don’t think for yourself. Don’t challenge conventional wisdom, don’t rock the boat.
If you do what everyone does, you can expect pretty much the same results. The results are a life lived only in a small way, a life inside the prison, never seeing but often feeling the bars.
Greatness and great things are not achieved by lemming like mass market thinking and doing. The true leaders of history think their own thoughts. Often that is a very hard and lonely path. Generally it starts with a separation from others to spend time in contemplation – looking inward and thinking. If you want to achieve anything out of the ordinary, you’ll need to do the same.
Think of Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Nelson Mandela, Seymour Cray. These are all people who spent time away from the world, had their time in the wilderness, then came back with the profound insights that groupthink never seems to achieve.
Truth is always the most unwelcome of gifts, so they all faced their challenges in sharing their insight. Often the world is not ready for different thinking. Nevertheless what they found was worthy of sharing. We are all richer from the time they spent away.
If you choose the path of freedom, expect to spend some time away from others. You’ll need to do that to find the road on which to travel and to plan the journey and prepare yourself. You can’t do it if you are filling your head with the latest celebrity news, game shows and bubblegum pop.
Sometimes it will be lonely, and it will be tempting to do the same things that everyone else does, but remember your goals, whether they be financial, business, spiritual, physical and keep the end in sight, while remembering to enjoy the ride.
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