Be the lemur, my friends
Oh, hi friends!
The critics all loved the movie.
Your friends all loved the movie.
But you kind of...hated the movie?
So what do you do?
Do you say "that was awful" and ruin their fun?
Do you nod and give a wry smile and say, "it was OK"?
Or do you explain your reasoning and why your thoughts might be different from theirs?
Group think happens in dozens of forms. You encounter it every day.
But maybe if you practice the skill of voicing your opinion in small ways — about a movie perhaps — it might get easier to voice your opinion about the bigger things.
Why your job might look different from someone else's, why you spend your free time working on a project for yourself, why you're living with roommates so you can save up for an apartment down the line. Whatever it is.
There's lot of group think, but it also matters what you think.
"I had always thought that, at some point in life, most people become 'who we are.' Our lives are built around whatever that is, and no matter what we might actually be capable of, this idea keeps us fixed in one place.
At 35, I thought I was 'who I was.' I didn’t think it was still possible to improve significantly in anything, let alone something involving my body. Our culture is fixated on youth, on potential, on lists of '30 under 30' — especially for women, who are assigned a 'biological clock,' whether they believe in it or not."
From this inspiring article, "I Am 35 and Running Faster Than I Ever Thought Possible". As Lindsay Crouse writes, she had to completely dismantle her training (and her thinking) and get comfortable with the uncomfortable — running a marathon pace of 6 minutes 17 seconds per mile. It never got comfortable, she says, but it did become possible.
"After months of work, my physical and psychological reframing had worked. It wasn’t an idea anymore. It was my plan. We don’t have many opportunities later in life to change who we are, without worrying about what other people think or upending wherever we’ve landed in our lives."
What an amazing lesson in challenging the norm.
May you encounter the new week with all the agility and grace of a Sifaka lemur navigating spine-covered branches.
Do you like these daily emails? Please share with a friend!
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara