“Society is designed to keep you conformed and not stand out.”
- Dr. Myles Munroe (The Spirit of Leadership)
Welcome you all of great potential to the New Year 2010. Before I begin the continuation of the last discourse, I have a question to ask. “What do you see and where do you see yourself at the end of this year?” You don’t have to tell me your answers, just ponder on the question.
Rollo May, the distinguished psychiatrist, wrote a wonderful book called Man's Search for Himself, and in this book he says: "The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice ... it is conformity." And there you have the reason for so many failures. Conformity — people acting like everyone else, without knowing why or where they are going.
We learn to read by the time we're seven. We learn to make a living by the time we're 30. Often by that time we're not only making a living, we're supporting a family. And yet by the time we're 65, we haven't learned how to become financially independent in the richest land that has ever been known. Why? We conform! Most of us are acting like the wrong percentage group — the 95% who don't succeed.
Society is designed to keep you conformed and if you don’t find your place of Independence you will always be influenced and find yourself swaying to the emotional cycle of society’s expectations. Your every decision will always be tortured with the thoughts of making sure that it will have to please society and be the same as everyone else. Life is all about growth and change and if one doesn’t follow this order of nature will certainly die out. You can still be in a society but not necessarily of it.
There are people who were regarded as “the misfits” of society; the round pegs in square holes. They are the ones that looked beyond a blank canvass and saw a work of art. History talks about these people who dared to go beyond society’s conventional way of thinking. The renaissance and industrial revolution was started by these people, without whom you wouldn’t enjoy the benefits of their work as you do now.
If it wasn’t for one of such people, you would still think that the Earth is the center of the Universe. Copernicus, a renowned thinker and philosopher, was ridiculed by his society back then for he claimed that the Sun and not the earth was the center of the Universe. Thomas Edison was considered mentally insane during his time because the “crazy” person was seen several times flying a kite during thunder storms but nonetheless his crazy endeavor led to the discovery of electricity.
The Matrix movie tells a clear and interesting concept that resembles the world today. There are two types of people in the world today that the movie depicts; those who live life by default and at the hands of fate and there are those who don’t like the idea of fate and who would rather be the controller and master of their own life. Which group do you belong to?
Now many of you who have read my other discourses may think that I have something against following the advice of “getting an education, find a secure job and settle down”. NO I DON’T have anything against that advice but what I am trying to point out is the MENTALITY developed and set by this conventional norm. Dr. Myles Munroe went to Malaysia one time for a business meeting with some Asian business men and during a lunch-break one of the Asian businessman asked him this question: “Dr. Munroe, why is it that many people of your skin pigmentation find it hard to make it well in life and live a life of prosperity and abundance?” Before Dr. Munroe could give an answer, the Asian answered his own question. “You see, this is what I have observed between your people and my people. An Asian can enter into a country dead broke and the first thing he will look for is NOT a Job, which your people will do. Instead he will seek to start a business.” Many Papua New Guineans have this limited mentality of working for somebody for the rest of their working life, and can’t wait for retirement, instead of working towards having others to work for you.
There is more to life than what you are now seeing!!
Have a Great Week and always remember to DARE THINK DIFFERENT.
Cheers!
