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Today's
Meditation:
This
is possibly the most important warning that we can
receive, as long as we pay attention to it. Are we
truly being our authentic selves, searching out our own
roads for our own journeys, or are we living our lives
based on what we think other people expect from us and of
us?
What
do other people expect of us? Some things are very
helpful to our communities, such as following laws and
cooperating with other people. Other things, though,
such as conforming to stereotypes and artificial social
expectations, can be truly harmful to us as we attempt to
forge and define our own identities, as we attempt to find
our own, truly unique roads through life.
Robert
Frost's words "I took the road less traveled by/and
that has made all the difference," have been used
often to illustrate the idea that James is talking about
above. Frost didn't say that it made his life easy
or that there were no difficulties on the road he took,
but he does imply that he was able to live his own idea of
life rather than the idea that other people might have had
in mind for him.
It's
important to keep in mind that the roads that are traveled
constantly are devoid of life. The soil gets
trampled down so tightly that nothing can grow there, so
our journeys on those roads aren't nearly as rich as they
would be on roads that we find for ourselves. Our
purpose on this planet is not to play follow-the-leader or
to live up to other people's expectations. Our
purpose here is to become the best version of ourselves
that we possibly can (to borrow an oft-used term).
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