Rugged Individualism and Conformity?! These two don’t go together, do they?
Ironic, isn’t it.
For a country that prides its…well, everything…on a uniquely self-professed ideal of rugged individualism, it is amazing how much Americans struggle with their natural differences in being, allowing and giving life to their authentic, true and unique selves. And I’m not talking about the visible, natural differences regarding the physical body (although the issues we still struggle with around those are another topic altogether). I’m talking about the invisible differences of the mind, heart and soul:
- the different ways we think about life and how those different ways hold unique meaning for us;
- the different beliefs we have about what is important, real, true, and valuable to us for our own lives; for our own definitions of a life well-lived; and how those change and evolve as we do;
- the different ways we measure, define and actualize success in our lives, careers and businesses; and
- the different desires we have, and the different choices we make to fulfill those desires, for the lifestyles we want to live … the desires and choices that will uniquely bring us fulfillment and that hold meaning and purpose for us in our own lives.
As indididuals, (rugged or otherwise) each of us possess these differences, which, by the way, are natural as well.
Given the uniquely American ideal of rugged individualism, it is rather surprising how much our culture subjects its citizens to significant and constant pressure, from all directions, that inculcates us with social norms and mores attempting to streamline our thinking, wants and desires away from what is natural to us as unique individuals toward a more mass-acceptable, mass-common, mass-‘it’s just what everyone does,’ way of being. Going against the masses and being directed on your own path by the power of your own unique mind, heart and spirit, therefore, takes a conscious, concerted, and intentional effort – some would even call it brave/courageous – as the pressure for rugged individuals to conform in our society is felt that strongly and is embedded that deeply.
THE RUGGED INDIVIDUAL AT WORK: The work I do with each of my clients inevitably centers on helping them get clear about what it is they really want for their lives, careers and/or businesses; and then supporting them in taking specific steps toward creating and manifesting those very things for themselves. So often our struggle in getting clear about what we want is rooted in the pressure we feel from those around us (family, friends, colleagues, broader society, etc.) to want what everyone else wants; to have what everyone else has; to live how everyone else lives; to choose what everyone else chooses … even as those particular wants, possessions, choices, and/or lives don’t satisfy our own minds, hearts and souls for who we want to be and the lives we want to live. I tell my clients all the time:
“I don’t believe for one moment that you don’t know what you want. I believe you know exactly what you want. I also believe that your knowledge of what you want has become buried beneath a mountain of ‘shoulds,’ ‘have tos,’ ‘supposed tos,‘ and ‘musts.’ All of which are reflections of learned thinking and behavior from a society much more comfortable with its masses of rugged individuals doing the same things, wanting the same things, taking their lives in the same direction rather than allowing them to know their own minds and hearts, and to live out the unique truths of their own souls. But as these were learned, these too can be unlearned. Therefore, our work together will be to peel back the layers of that mountain to help you get to the core of what is real and true for you.”
And of course peeling back those layers to get to the core is just the first step. The next step for the client as they move forward, and often the hardest, is them being able to place at least as much belief and trust (if not more) in the value, legitimacy and ‘rightness’ of what it is they truly desire for their own lives as they have in what it is others have told them they are ‘supposed to’ want for their lives.
In a nation of rugged individuals, it is quite amazing how breaking free of the pressure to conform to mass definitions of what life, success, work, etc., should look like has become one of the hardest things to do.
THE RUGGED INDIVIDUAL AT HOME: As in our professional lives, so too in our personal lives. I have a dear friend, a new mother, who is committed to taking full advantage of being able to raise her child full-time. She has no intention of going ‘back to work’ before her child is ready for school. And even then, what going ‘back to work’ will look like for her will be very different from what it looked like before she took maternity leave. And she is soooo ok with that. What a wonderfully empowered choice for a woman to make – for herself and her child! This is especially true these days, with the pressure from so many corners put upon professional women to always want and choose for their lives and careers what other professional women are told they should want and choose for theirs. But even in this empowered choosing my friend feels that pressure to conform. Among her fellow new mothers, many have embraced (indeed some have welcomed) the pressure to go back to work as soon as possible and they share that pressure with each other. My friend tells me she constantly faces questions from these other mothers about when she’s going back to work – questions asked in ways that presume a foregone conclusion that my friend will be going back to work as soon as possible too. Thankfully, these questions do not change my friend’s personal decision one iota; but she admits she sometimes feels the pressure to say something to contribute affirmatively to the consensus of the ‘group talk’ about going back to work, anything to not feel like an outsider and to lessen the pressure from her group of moms.
All those decades of fighting for a woman’s right to choose (to be free to make her own decisions about her own life) and still today, even in spaces occupied solely by women, women are pressured to conform.
THE ANSWERS IN NATURE: As I contemplated the implications of living with, navigating through and freeing ourselves from the trappings and limitations of this contradiction (a nation of rugged individuals pressured to conform), I experienced something in nature that shed some powerful light – which Nature so often does. On one of my walks through my favorite, sacred space in nature, I came across these flowers and these butterflies going about their lives so magnificently. And, while observing them it became so clear to me:
No two flowers are exactly alike. No two butterflies are exactly alike. Nature makes no two of any living thing exactly alike. Mother Nature knows what she’s doing!
We are different by nature and yet, while humans are most equipped to exemplify, maximize and leverage their differences, in nature we seem to be the ones who struggle most with accommodating, accepting, embracing and living out-loud the diverse beauty of our natural differences. And, yet, in nature, we see the awe-inspiring, creative and innovative beauty that diversity brings forth and how those differences benefit all life.
So rather than continuing to allow ourselves to be confined to the pressures, trappings and limitations of mass conformity, maybe it’s time we rugged individuals commit to a different kind of allowing – one that releases the power and the wisdom of our own minds, our own hearts and our own souls to define the nature and direction of our own lives. If we allowed ourselves that much, we each, in our own unique ways for our own unique lives, might finally be able to:
Know yourself, trust yourself, love yourself enough to…
Keep your own pace.
Set your own starting point.
Be your own benchmark.
Keep pace with your own (greater) Self.
Establish your own standards.
Follow your own rules.
Live (for) your own dreams.
Be your own measure of success.
Be beautifully, intelligently, magnificently, powerfully, brilliantly, exquisitely, stunningly, lovingly, naturally, individually … YOU! Because the truth remains, of all the ‘yous’ Nature has made, you’re the only one of YOU we’ve got!
BE … ILLUMINED!