The Problem Of Your Own Way

[Emre]

How to follow your own way? How can one really follow his own way? That is a problem that's been fucking me for months.

How can one choose his own way without being influenced by others when even the options he has are influenced by other people? I mean every step you take, every word you say, every thought that comes to your mind are just consequences of what/who you have been listeneing to, following and etc. and the bigger problem is other people _tell other people_ to be themselves or even sometimes not to listen others. I mean I hope you can see the huge problem here. 

So my question is how one can really follow his own way? 

[Prabhaker]

13 minutes ago, Emre said:

how one can really follow his own way? 

The last words of Gautama the Buddha on the earth were: Be a light unto yourself. Do not follow others, do not imitate, because imitation, following, creates stupidity. You are born with a tremendous possibility of intelligence. You are born with a light within you. Listen to the still, small voice within, and that will guide you. Nobody else can guide you, nobody else can become a model for your life, because you are unique. Nobody has there been ever who was exactly like you, and nobody is ever going to be there again who will be exactly like you. 

[Emre]

31 minutes ago, Prabhaker said:

Do not follow others

Allrigh let's say you apply this and the rest for your life. Can't you see the BIG problem here? You are following him, telling yourself you are not following anyone! 

[Flow With Life]

As you have pointed out in your post, it is impossible to act of your own independent will. Every thought, intention, or action you do is just a deterministic reaction (based on your psychology) to sensory input (from the environment). However, the advice of "follow your own way" just means don't blindly believe what you have thus far been led to believe; question it, and ask if it is serving you. If so, keep it, else discard it and look for something better.

 

[Leo Gura]

@Emre Helps a lot to unplug from society periodically and just be in solitude for weeks at a time. It's like the difference between looking at stars in the city and out in the desert. They are very easy to see in the desert.

[phoenix666]

It's impossible to not be influenced. But it's also impossible to not go your own way because as much as you imitate someone, you will never be the same. Get as many sources as possible, try different things. Keep what you like and discard what you don't. Make a meta-analysis of the meta-sources so to speak.

[Emre]

@Flow With Life But if what is only meant by this saying is just 'don't believe anything blindly' I think then the people'd choose to say things like that not 'follow your heart' etc. 

@Leo Gura Believe me I already am not in society and looking at the stars out in the desert. I don't have any social media accounts, not much friends, not going out etc. still struggling with this very hard. 

@phoenix666 How can you be going your own way imitating someone else man? For sure you wouldn't be same, but you wouldn't be going your own way either.

[Emre]

@Leo Gura Cuz I know whenever I read Nietsche, what I say looks like his sayings. Whenever I listen to Kurt Cobain my attitude looks like his. Iunno man, I feel like there wouldn't be a way to control this.

[phoenix666]

@Emre even if you try to follow someone, you're still a unique person. you still have your own constructed view of the world, made out of many other views. don't worry so much on 'going your own way' or 'not to follow someone'. ideas, concepts, views are a collective pool from which you can take what you want, try what you want and also let go of again. you can take on whatever concepts you want, in the end the only thing that matters is what you experience. and that is something that you have to do on your own

[Emerald]

2 hours ago, Emre said:

How to follow your own way? How can one really follow his own way? That is a problem that's been fucking me for months.

How can one choose his own way without being influenced by others when even the options he has are influenced by other people? I mean every step you take, every word you say, every thought that comes to your mind are just consequences of what/who you have been listeneing to, following and etc. and the bigger problem is other people _tell other people_ to be themselves or even sometimes not to listen others. I mean I hope you can see the huge problem here. 

So my question is how one can really follow his own way? 

My interpretation is that you seem to have a limiting and untrue belief that goes something like, "I have to be unique and completely uninfluenced by others in order to be authentic." But uniqueness and authenticity are not the same thing, even if culture tells you so. We tend to equate non-conformity and uniqueness with authenticity. You see this type of logic a lot with many people in the "alternative" crowds who are trying to be unique and tend to look down on "conformists" for being "fake". But they also often fail to see their own kind of conformity and fakeness during the entire thought process.

There is no need to break any molds in order to be authentic. You can find that the most average person can be 100% more authentic than someone who strives to be unique. So, I would shift from prioritizing independence and uniqueness to true authenticity. That means that you do whatever feels right, even if someone else (or everyone else) is doing it. It's easy to be the first person and only person to do something, but it's very hard to be the 9th person doing something, if you're the type that tries to stand out. And there really is nothing new under the sun. 

You'll find a lot of people will only enjoy things as long as it's not popular. Then, once it becomes popular, their feelings change. That's because (first off) they never really liked the thing that much to begin with. They just liked the idea of liking it because it adds to their "unique" identity. And (second) because they talked themselves out of any positive feelings they had about the thing because they don't want to undermine their "unique" identity. They don't want to be like the other "conformists" and "sheeple" that they judge so harshly in their attempts to love themselves through affirming their superiority via the vehicle of uniqueness. 

Now, don't also fall over on the other side of the horse. There will be emotions that you feel that are genuinely different from most people. So, you must also be brave enough to follow your authenticity through to non-conforming actions.

So, you must let your emotions guide you in order to be authentic. Whether other people are or are not doing it is irrelevant. Conformity and uniqueness are just different terrains that your authenticity will likely travel through. Let it go wherever it wants to go in either of these terrains and you won't be confused. You are not the terrain, you are the thing that travels through it. 

 

[Emre]

43 minutes ago, Emerald said:

You are not the terrain, you are the thing that travels through it. 

No, what? This is exactly what the ego is.

So by the way I know about your YouTube channel. For example how authentic do you think your channel is? Almost all of your thumbnails are identical to Leo's. Of course I don't mean to be rude here, not at all. But you channel is more like a copy channel of Leo's. By going your own way this is what I mean; creating something that is independent of what is already done.

[Emerald]

Just now, Emre said:

No, what? This is exactly what the ego is.

So by the way I know about your YouTube channel. For example how authentic do you think your channel is? Almost all of your thumbnails are identical to Leo's. Of course I don't mean to be rude here, not at all. But you channel is more like a copy channel of Leo's. By going your own way this is what I mean; creating something that is independent of what is already done.

In the context of my channel, you can definitely see that it was inspired by Leo. And I readily admit to that. I really like his thumbnails and wanted to do something similar but different. So, I decided to do expressive gestures like he does... though he didn't invent expressive gestures either. I preferred it to unexpressive thumbnails and straight on head shots. But I also have a different background and different lettering. So, I have no shame in taking strong inspiration from Leo in this way. It would be inauthentic to decide not to do what I want with my thumbnails simply because someone had already done it. 

But my channel is by no means a copy channel of Leo's. If you watch my videos, you will see that Leo and I cover some similar topics but in a completely different way. Our perspectives are actually very different. For example, Leo likes to set himself as an example and urges people to sort of get with it and keep up. He tends to appeal to people's idealism. I, on the other hand, like to give a lot of personal anecdotes as to say "here's what I've noticed as a fallible human being." So I tend to appeal to people's vulnerability. But given that you believe my channel to be a copy of Leo's, it means that you're basing this only on my thumbnails. Watch my videos, and you will see a huge difference. 

But the ego is the thing that thinks it can follow a unique path to begin with. It's the one that thinks it needs to be "the different one" or "the one that stands out." But the only real way to be authentic is to just let your preferences and emotions be what they are without the attachment to "being the unique one." 

My recommendation is to go back to what I wrote before when you have a clear head and give it some honest consideration. It can be very threatening to tell a person that their differences don't add value or significance to them. There is no amount of uniqueness that will make you more or less valid than you already are. Just do what you feel is right. It's all you can do. Don't even pay attention to what others are doing.

The reality is, you are a basic raccoon amongst billions of other basic raccoons. What are the odds that you'd be the one raccoon that really breaks the mold? The point is... "Who cares what a raccoon does... other than raccoons, of course?" So, a wise raccoon does whatever it wants to do even if it's the most basic raccoon nonsense that there is. A foolish raccoon tries to take over the entire world and be the special raccoon. Meanwhile, a foolish human laughs at the raccoon and says, "Silly raccoon. It doesn't even know that humans own the world!"

[zazed]

Who follows this way, what of these thoughts is you, if half of them are influenced by others? It is an important realization, that your thoughts are not you. What your body does when walking around is not so important really.
You can only accept what is, influences included. What does it even matter, why would you care? 

You can see it as proof of the non dual consciousness. Perception, or awareness is the source and your true self, these thoughts and opinions are just manifestations of life or being. Your physical body is just a manifestation of life.

Following your own way, does not mean ignoring everything outside of you.
Perhaps, being influenced, is the way and the path. What else is there, when every bite of food and every breath of air influences and changes your physical body and mood. One can only accept this, and go forward unencumbered.

TLDR : You are overthinking it. Thinking is often not helpful and not required to be. And also, is this a question for people's opinion you have here, or a challenge for us to prove something regarding these statements?

[Wyatt]

@Emre You could go in your own direction and not listen to anyone at all, but how useful would that be? One of the great things about language is we can communicate experiences, especially danger. If you were in the forest, how would you identiy the delicious berries vs poisinous berries without some sort of guide? This can apply to all types of domains. As far as I can tell, collective human knowledge is a better starting point than going in the world completely by alone

[Emerald]

13 minutes ago, zazed said:

Who follows this way, what of these thoughts is you, if half of them are influenced by others? It is an important realization, that your thoughts are not you. What your body does when walking around is not so important really.
You can only accept what is, influences included. What does it even matter, why would you care? 

You can see it as proof of the non dual consciousness. Perception, or awareness is the source and your true self, these thoughts and opinions are just manifestations of life or being. Your physical body is just a manifestation of life.

Following your own way, does not mean ignoring everything outside of you.
Perhaps, being influenced, is the way and the path. What else is there, when every bite of food and every breath of air influences and changes your physical body and mood. One can only accept this, and go forward unencumbered.

TLDR : You are overthinking it. Thinking is often not helpful and not required to be. And also, is this a question for people's opinion you have here, or a challenge for us to prove something regarding these statements?

Well said.

[Flow With Life]

2 hours ago, Emre said:

@Flow With Life But if what is only meant by this saying is just 'don't believe anything blindly' I think then the people'd choose to say things like that not 'follow your heart' etc. 

Your issue is that you are taking this advice (follow your own path) meant for a conventional worldview out of context. I'll explain:

If humans take input (from the environment), and then react in a deterministic way (thoughts and actions), then a human is like a machine. From this perspective, there is no free will in the human, it's just a puppet, whose strings are held by the world. Let's call this worldview 1.

However, to the Ego, it feels like it can choose which path it wants to take, and that it is not deterministic. The Ego can forge its own path. Let's call this worldview 2.

Both worldviews are valid, just at different levels of analysis. 

As far as the advice "follow your own path" is concerned, it only makes sense in worldview 2, but you might be trying to understand it in worldview 1, hence your confusion. But this points to a deeper source of confusion, which is how it is possible for two seemingly contradictory worldviews to both be true at the same time, this is the essence of spirituality.

Edited June 18, 2017 by Flow With Life

[Prabhaker]

3 hours ago, Emre said:

Allrigh let's say you apply this and the rest for your life. Can't you see the BIG problem here? You are following him, telling yourself you are not following anyone! 

A enlightened master has not to be followed but understood. A enlightened master has not to be imitated but listened to  in tremendous silence, love, trust. 

[Prabhaker]

4 hours ago, Emre said:

That is a problem that's been fucking me for months.

We have to find a way that how can we live in present moment. In this process we can get hints from a master but ultimately we have to experiment on our-self, we have to listen to our body , our being , our intuition that what keeps us in present moment. 

3 hours ago, Emre said:

you are not following anyone! 

I have listened to many masters, I love Osho but if something makes me easier to live in present moment, I will do it , even if it is against teaching of Osho. On this path a person learns from mistakes, but don't do same mistake again and again.

Edited June 18, 2017 by Prabhaker
grammatical mistake

[aurum]

@Emre You're taking "go your own way" too literally.

It doesn't mean you don't function in society or have influences. Actually, your influences essentially make up everything that you feel is you anyway.

What it means is that you have a uniqueness. A purpose you came here to fulfill.

The problem is that most people are not trying to find what that purpose is. They're simply doing what others tell them they "should" be doing.

So it isn't about doing or not doing anything in particular. It's about doing it because it's authentic to you.

That might require doing some unplugging from other people initially because you've been living this life of "I should be doing this" for so long. But once you know, you know.

Then it doesn't really matter if people are influencing you because you're consciously choosing to let them influence you. In fact, you'll seek out certain influences because you know they're going to help you get what you want.

Now you're consciously designing your own life. You've become a co-creator with some undefinable thing larger than yourself. That's when you're going your own way.

Edited June 19, 2017 by aurum

[Bob84]

12 hours ago, Emre said:

How to follow your own way? How can one really follow his own way? That is a problem that's been fucking me for months.

How can one choose his own way without being influenced by others when even the options he has are influenced by other people? I mean every step you take, every word you say, every thought that comes to your mind are just consequences of what/who you have been listeneing to, following and etc. and the bigger problem is other people _tell other people_ to be themselves or even sometimes not to listen others. I mean I hope you can see the huge problem here. 

So my question is how one can really follow his own way? 

You and your own way are but a concept in the mind, that change constantly. New knowlage and imformation, regardless of source will be added to it. 

The less neurosis you have the more positive your own way becomes.