Deviate from the norm.

By Toni O’Keeffe

February 29, 2020

From the day we’re born we start learning and consuming information from our parents, other family members, our church, school, political system and society.

Based on this learning we start to form opinions, start to believe in things, we structure our lives, make commitments to people and things all based on what we’ve been taught. We become chained to the beliefs and information that has been ingrained in us.

Then something happens. We grow and evolve and we start to question what we’ve been taught to believe. But we’re afraid to break rank, so the majority of us continue to follow, often blindly.

It doesn’t make sense to stay anchored or aligned to doctrines written hundreds years ago by old white men whose objective was to keep people in “check”. Whether these were religious or political doctrines or societal laws; we’ve changed, the world has changed, so it makes sense that our thinking and behaviour should change.

Technology, scientific research, learning from other cultures, new discoveries and our collective human experience would imply a change of well, a lot of things. Things such as how we treat each other, how we treat the planet, how we treat animals, where we get our food from, how we work, play and worship and, how and where we learn, need to be examine and challenged. Kudos to those that are leading change in all these areas.

Of course there is lots of old world wisdom that does still fits into today’s world. For example; we need to continue to our exercise our capacity to be kind, compassionate and loving to all living things. We need to cooperate as a human society. We should strive to be our best and use the gifts we’ve been given.

When I think of people like; Nelson Mandela, Sojourner Truth , Rosa Parks, Gloria Steinem, Ruth Bader Ginsburg , Colin Kaepernick, even Harry and Megan and so many more, …. I think of change agents, or soldiers of transformation. These people broke rank because they knew something was wrong.

If you wanna’ change the world, I mean really change the world; then stop following the pack, stop conforming to peer and family pressure, stop agreeing with things you don’t agree with for the sake of getting along.

You don’t have to follow the party line or behave or think the way your religious or political leaders tell you to. Challenge the status quo, challenge those things that make you crazy and make you shake your head and say “that’s messed up.”

Go out there and shake up somebody’s thinking – chart your own course and carve out your own path. Don’t be afraid to change, its part of our growth.

Todays normal is what has f’d- up the world. The world needs more free thinkers and creative problem solvers. The world needs all of us to live our truth and unlearn the things that are hurting our planet and everything on it.

“ Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible”~ Frank Zappa.

TO’K~🌹💕