Revolutionaries don’t just burn the rules. They write new ones. In destroying the standard, they create the standard. It’s creative destruction at its finest.
This quote comes from Jon Morrow’s, an Associate Editor of Copyblogger post: The Courage of Being Wrong. Jon doesn’t mention in the post, but he is writing from personal experience. Because of his physical disability, he is not “normal.” He learned, some would say he was forced to learn that his only route to success was allowing his uniqueness be his guide.
I respect Jon for getting off his ass and finding his voice and his passion. Jon has Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a degenerative neuromuscular disease that the standard medical establishment would say is fatal. Jon expects to create his own standard and walk again.
Often the most repressive standards are the ones we don’t know exist. Just as the fish doesn’t experience water as being unique, we often accept limitations because other do the same. Coming from a holistic health background, I see people heal conditions they first thought incurable. Surgeons who didn’t want back surgery cured a back problem with non-traditional treatment.
Steven Pressfield in his book, The War of Art speaks about breaking through your resistance to create, to achieve. Often your resistance disguises what and how things should be done. Breaking out of those agreements can be the largest source to your success. Once free of them you are free to fail and succeed on your own.
One warning, as you reach the limits of the standard, the troops of repression will mount their largest battle. Within you and outside of you all forces will be telling you not to leave the world of accepted practices. Your friends can be some of the strongest warriors or temptresses.
Being a revolutionary, having the courage to be wrong comes from following a different leader. This leader is the one buried within you, suppressed first by society then by you. It is the leader that comes out through the trails of traveling your Evolutionary Change™ or what Joseph Campbell calls the Hero’s Journey.
Share with us how you lead yourself through those difficult places.