Find or create the place where you’re the norm.
One of the greatest things that hold us back — from relocating, from leaving the relationships that are abusive to us, from pursuing the life we want — is the fear of being left alone.
There’s nothing bad about it. It’s human. It’s normal. We’re scared that if we’ll be alone, we won’t survive. On top of that, with the disappearing trust in society and communities, we rather hand over our trust to the government: ‘Just in case’, or ‘If kids were too busy’. The government will be here. By paying them now, they will take care of tomorrow. Surely.
We do this when we’re tired of manipulating other people the same way. The conditional relationships — ‘I will love you if you will act as I wish only’ (or any other condition you think of) — are the same type of dependency manipulations.
There are some other motivations behind such behavior — mistrust of oneself, inability or fear of being alone, lack of confidence, or just lack of understanding that relationships between people, that our surroundings could be different. If we were always given this conditional pattern as an example (‘I will love you if you will have good grades’), our brain cannot imagine different ways in which people can be treated.
Or better:
How we can be treated.
As a result, we are staying in an environment that might not fit us. Possibly, we’re just passive in the way we are choosing our surroundings. (I talked more about the socializing issues and the deterministic — passive—active/pro-active approaches here.) Passive means that we accept people into our lives that just walk by. It can be our colleagues at work, high school peers, or that guy who sat in the pub and was not that bad.
Two problems — ‘It’s not that bad’ and things in common. I will start with the latter.
People we know since high school had one thing in common — it was that they had to go to the same institution. It’s like people who were born a few kilometers, maybe even a few hundred of kilometers away from you — yes, I mean the citizens of the same state. You were just lucky enough to appear on a similar territory at the same time. No extra effort was put in. The same counts for race or gender etc.
Judging people based on that is very shortsighted and... stupid. If you bring yourself above others based on what you didn’t do anything for (being born, the school where you were assigned, your name, race, etc.), it only speaks about yourself that you don’t have anything else to be proud of.
Let’s get back to the socializing thing — it’s simple as that. People who sit in the same office, only sit in the same office. They chose the same company to work for (I will talk about values later, but the corporate values are usually sterile and nothing more than a few buzzwords). And if you’re lucky enough, you both play chess.
Besides that, you most likely will have to alter your behavior to please someone, to fit in the crowd, to ‘be accepted’. Sadly — you won’t be accepted, but your altered version will be.
‘It’s not that bad’
Not-that-bad people are everywhere around us. For someone, not-that-bad is a cheating boyfriend. For someone else, it’s a husband that beats his wife. For many, it’s that guy we’ve been already dating and maybe it’s not the best, but it could be worse, right? For even more many people it’s the marriage that’s not that bad, but we don’t really enjoy going back home.
Not-that-bad means bad, but we keep explaining it, we are loyal, we keep accepting it, we keep allowing it. We keep allowing to be mistreated.
This is one of the ways how we suppress rage — we don’t say no to these people. We let them say anything that harms us. We keep nodding to the words we disagree with. We meet them again and again, despite we feel so tense when around.
Most likely, we are scared — again, because we’ll be left alone; maybe we don’t believe the world and life have anything else to offer; or we think (especially because of some other people), that we don’t deserve anything better. So, it’s not that bad. We keep living our not-that-bad life with not-that-bad people.
Now, this doesn’t mean that there are perfect people. No one is perfect. There is no best self. There is no only good. The only reality is the whole, self-accepting of both good and bad. Seeing it, taking it as it is. Self-compassionate. (I wrote more about the wholeness here.)
I just say that no, we do not deserve to be mistreated — no one does. And even those who mistreat may just lack a bit of love and obviously, they didn’t understand they can give it to themselves too.
We all have our own lesson ahead — to give ourselves what we need. No one else can do it better than we do. Oh yes. Acceptance, compassion, care, love, appreciation. As long as we’ll be searching for this outside, we’ll be unsatisfied. Never enough: No one will be good enough; we will never be good enough; no one can give us enough of what we need.
This is an important stage.
If we have around not-that-bad people and nothing-in-common people (someone can be in both categories), we will end up altering our own behavior or playing toxic games over and over again. To please others, ourselves, or whoever comes.
At the same time — a brief look in the mirror would be fine too. We attracted these people for some reason. We have to leave this not-so-bad to go our own way. But going our own way through self-care and not seeking fulfillment in the external world (at others).
If you say it sucks, so I agree. It will take months, or years. Oh, it does. I wish I read something like what I am just writing myself earlier. It’s been a long journey to understand this direction. There are no shortcuts.
We have to accept that we’ll be on our own. Maybe no one will come. (Oh and please, no government…) Maybe no one will save us if things will go wrong. We’re mortal. Things happen. Maybe we’ll end all this on our own. Alone. In our own beliefs and words.
It’s frightening, but freeing.
Overcome this fear to set yourself free.
Just go. Go your way. Even if no one is around.
Where are we heading?
It’s fascinating. And freeing.
Once you go your way. Fully. On your own. No games. Truly your game and your place here on earth. The one you chose yourself, you worked for.
Once we are left to be on our own. Undistracted solitude. Just birds and green and maybe even nothing. Ourselves, on our own with our thoughts. And later even without them. Just us, in our nature, with the good and the bad.
We realize, that it’s not the world, not the surroundings, not anyone else.
It’s we who sets the direction.
And we go that way.
Slowly we can see that there are others who walk a similar way. Their way. And when we settle down for the night, to sleep in the safe, calm space, there will be others: also watching the stars, firing the fire, and washing in the river.
We will find people in the world who accept us not for our deeds, past, success, or position, but because of how they feel around us. They will even love us for how they feel around us.
Maybe it will be a like-minded community of people sharing the same values, or it will be the individuals who think similar way; but maybe, we will have to go and create the community ourselves. We will have to take the first bricks, we will have to dig the hole, and start building. Despite we never did it, now we know we can — because we already took care of ourselves and we know we can handle what we need to handle.
And once we build the first little house, some people come and greet and say ‘oh, what a house. That’s the one I’ve been looking for so long.’
And that’s how we make a difference. How we create the status quo. How we are the norm.
To have such surroundings, that take us, our norm, as being okay, makes a huge difference. Instead of constantly defeating ourselves, instead of fighting back, and being 24/7 on guard, we can breathe out. There’s no more fighting. There are observation, acceptance, self-expression, boundaries, saying no to what doesn’t work for us, work, honesty, and directness. Acceptance one more time.
But is it worth the work? The journey?
Well, that’s an individual choice. It requires one to see himself naked — his soul and the body, the way they are.
But there’s still the other conformist way of staying in the not-so-bad surrounding, where, when you try to climb the ladder, others tear you down.
Find or create the place where you’re the norm.
Breathe.
With love,
Sam
P.S. My own journey is to build and create more people around The Freeist idea — people who accept responsibility for their life and intentionally broaden the opportunities they have. My intense weekend academy will be held on the 1st and the 2nd of April. Buy your tickets here. 🙏🏻 Thank you.
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Or watch my YouTube monologues or Liberland in Georgia podcast here.
