Fellow travelers

I came across another interesting entry in the vast do what you want and screw the corporate gig, it's just making you a miserable, consumerist clone genre of self-help books tonight. This is the book. I've never heard of this guy, but I guess he's yet another blogger turned author trying to turn his life experience into a lucrative gig. This type of writing (which I have to confess that I consume on an all too regular basis) is plentiful and popular. I can't help but associate this combination with workout and diet books. All of this writing and reading (well, buying anyway), is an attempt to fool ourselves that we're making progress against some long standing goal while we're really just standing around doing the same old thing.

Sure, I can read this guy's book (it's short, I'll finish it tomorrow), but what impact will that have on my life? So maybe I can tell myself a slightly different version of the story that I've been telling myself for the last handful of years. How will yet another book urging me to turn my back on society's expectations alter my current course? Is that really the point of reading the book in the first place? Is it about changing my course or just finding reinforcement that what I've been doing all along is not crazy and destined for failure?

I'm not this miserable sap who's floating around waiting for life to hand me that perfect thing that I've always wanted. I know you have to go out there and get what you want. You need to get a sense for what you need and figure out the best way to go get it. You need to look at what holds you back and do what you can to fight against those tendencies. I just bought a jacket. I've been saying for years that I wanted a jacket that would keep me warm when it got really cold. Instead of going out and finding that jacket, I just kept using the same jackets that I've been using year after year. I think they were both Christmas presents from my mom. Rather than going out and getting what I wanted, I've been making due with what I already had. That's not really taking action. It's drifting. So I bought a jacket tonight. And rather than getting the same old safe black and gray one, I bought the blue and gray one. Yes, I know that's crazy, but you know how I like to live on The Edge.

So maybe the point of reading yet another book about following your inner voice is not so much about changing my path. For somebody who struggled with listening to his own wants and needs for far too long, it's good to have a voice reassuring me that doing what I want is the right thing. There is no reason why I should mold my life to satisfy everybody else's needs. I really only need to do what is best for me and the people that I love. So I'm not a social person who needs to have people over all the time. That's just me. I'm not inferior to others because I'm different. I'm simply being me. The pressures to conform are so strong. It's hard to fight against them. I had to come up with some story about being like Radiohead to get myself to follow my judgement as a new manager. The pull of doing things the way they've always been done were so strong. That well worn path looked so comforting. But that's not me. I need to find my own path. It still doesn't hurt to come across somebody seeking their own path every now and then.