At a breakfast meeting once, I used honey to sweeten my coffee. I did not want tea, I wanted coffee a little sweet and did not want to use sugar so I used honey. Should be simple enough, wouldn’t you think? It wasn’t. It was another five-ten minutes before we moved on to the formal agenda. The five — 10 minutes was spent discussing the fact that most people use honey in their tea, not coffee. It is interesting how quickly people spot anything out of their norm. It goes to show just how much we’ve been trained to follow certain paths such that any deviation from what is generally accepted as normal is immediately spotted and questioned. The deviation is not only seen as different; it’s seen as unusual. I think “different” is a word we use to politely denote “wrong” or even “abnormal” in some instances. “Spot the difference” is an exercise that appears in the kiddie section of one of our dailies with drawings of two nearly similar picture settings. The point is exactly as the name suggests. Wow. Our life systems condition us from such an early age to pick out what’s different. This may seem a fairly simple part of the weekend paper that kids enjoy but it isn’t so simple. New idea Our life systems are designed to have us spot “different” so we can reject it as a standard. The conditioning being that “different” is undesirable, uncomfortable, and not to be accommodated or tolerated. “Different” whether deemed positive or not isn’t the point. Anything, anyone or idea that is different doesn’t conform to the system that’s been replicated over the years is not only cast aside but is ostracised in some cases. Different things, people and notions come in a myriad of shapes, colors, and flavors yet it doesn’t seem to matter — they all get separated from what’s deemed normal and end up sticking out like sore thumbs until they start to show value on the physical plane. I am suggesting that our system has a single program designed specifically for regular life. It is training on conformity to everything that is average. It is alignment to what other people have predetermined as good, proper and acceptable, not what YOU dream of, desire and yearn for. Unlimited capacities It is the very few and extremely rare enlightened ones who will encourage you to believe in your unlimited capabilities. Know that everyone around you is trained to pay attention to what’s different and reject it. I want you exploiting this to rise onto your pedestal. As a forward-thinking, upwardly mobile leader, act, talk, work differently … Don’t fall for the system’s requirement to conform. Life is too short and I know for a fact that you are not here to be average. Dare to be different. If doing the same thing as everyone else was beneficial, everyone would be wildly successful and content with their lives. The fact that they aren’t is more than enough to show you that being the same as everyone else is unlikely to earn anything beyond what everyone else has or is. You know what to do if you want more, better and greater, you know what you’ve got to go out and do. The author is an expert on attitude and human potential.
