I am me – I need to live by my own authority

I am me. I am not you. I am comfortable (I think) with my beliefs,  with my likes and dislikes, with my judgements and opinions; I try to be as honest as I can; I try to be truthful; I try to be kind and compassionate and generally try to behave towards other people as I would like them to behave towards me. In other words I like to think of myself as an ordinary kind of bloke trying to live by my understanding and interpretation of events and circumstances. This means I am trying to live by my own authority.

And yet how many of us do things, have beliefs or have interpretations of events which we never worked out for ourselves – ones accepted by us because a politician, a priest, a rabbi or imam tells us, or we heard them on talk back radio, or saw them on TV or social media, or read about them somewhere - ones spoken or written about by someone we consider an ‘authority figure’? This means accepting, even if subconsciously, the decisions of someone else, who, we must think, also subconsciously, knows more, knows better. Otherwise why should we accept their opinion, their view of the world and how we should interpret it?

Why live according to someone else’s expectations? Why the necessity to conform? And conform to what? {There are of course laws in any country that have to be obeyed – criminal and civil laws. This is understandable and necessary for the orderly functioning of any society. This is not what I am talking about.}

To accept someone else’s decision is to accept their view of what they think our lives should be and how we should live it. In other words (whether we actually like it or not) we conform to someone else’s set of values, someone else’s views of life, not our own. We are not living by our own authority. 

Very few of the judgements we make on a daily basis, about what is “right” or “wrong” for us, are made by us, based on our true understanding of the situation as presented. It often seems that the more important the decision, the less likely we are to rely on our own thoughts and ideas, based on our own experiences. Advertisers tell us what we should buy – what we ‘deserve’; we are told what books to read, or music to listen to; we are told what fashion dictates we should wear and such like. Statisticians tell us that it is a statistical probability that, being a male in a certain age group and with certain racial physical characteristics and with certain religious beliefs, we will have certain likes and dislikes, be of a certain height, be overweight, even obese and have this or that medical problem and that when presented with an ethical dilemma we will answer in this or that way. But we are not a ‘probability’ – we are human beings.

One does not do something to be happy – one IS happy and does something to express it. One does not do something to be ethical – one IS ethical and does something to express those ethical ideals. We don’t need someone else to tell us – we act on our own authority.

Life is about choices and no one can make a choice for you, that suites you – be it as a voter, an employee or customer. It is your life and you need to live it your way, as you see fit to bring you peace of mind – your mind, not someone else’s. You need to live by your own authority – yours, not someone else’s.

So it should be with all activities. We are not pieces on an Economic Game Board to be moved at the whim of Big Business (Big Banks?). 

Commerce and industry must again revert to the position as the servant of humanity and never try to subvert this wherein humanity is considered the servant of commerce and industry. 

There is no need to change, just BE yourself. How can you reach fulfilment in your life if you live by someone else’s ideas; to someone else’s expectation? You must live by your own authority.  

But always remember that your freedom (to do what you want) stops when my freedom (to do what I want) begins!!