Do you trust your own judgement, or do you look to “the world” to tell you what’s what?
If you’re anything like me, you feel best when doing the former, but find yourself doing the latter all too often.
If it’s permission you’re waiting for, have it. I, Oliver Stewart Manning, hereby give you total and utter permission to trust in your own judgement. On any matter. Whatsoever.
You might think that it’s more responsible to look to “the world” for guidance. You might expect to develop a deeper and more holistic perspective on things. You might even think it’s a bit selfish and solipsistic to trust your own judgements on things above the wise consensus of the crowd.
You’d be dead wrong on both counts.
You see, although we’re collectively inhabiting this planet and hurtling through time and space “together,” we each have a unique perspective. And the uniqueness of your perspective is valuable.
The beauty of life – what causes the universe to expand – is when unique perspectives come together. Sometimes they do so harmoniously, sometimes with a crash like a piano falling down a stairwell. Either way, we are not meant to do the same things, want the same things, be the same things, value the same things…
This is why you must stop looking to “the world” for answers to questions like “What should I do?” “What is right?” What is wrong?” “Who am I?”
The world cannot answer these questions. Only you can.
Fortunately, you were made with the necessary equipment fitted as standard – you posess within yourself a perfectly tuned spiritual GPS. You might call it a soul. Ask it what’s right for you, and it will tell you. The more you use it, the more reliable it will become.
The answer it gives you might be different to the answer mine gives me, or Auntie Sheila’s gives Auntie Sheila, but that’s how it’s supposed to be. There is enough room on this planet for seven billion truths, and yours is no less valuable than anyone else’s.
At the end of the day, the only thing you need here is courage. You don’t need practice. You don’t need any more intelligence. You need only courage, because the world is and has always been a more hazardous place for those unwilling to swallow whatever they’re fed.
It’s a scarier place at first – when you decide that you and you alone are going to decide what’s what – but after that first step, you might as well as have taken the red pill in The Matrix. Your world will never be the same again.