I love this excerpt from Murray Oxman’s insightful best seller, How to Read People Like a Book:
Individuality: Once upon a time there was a flock of sheep grazing on a beautiful hillside of dark green grass in Utah. One fine day one of the newly matured male sheep looked about and noticed that all the sheep looked alike — no individuality he thought to himself. He taxed his brain trying to come up with something he could do to make him feel more like an individual and less like all the other sheep. Over an hour went by before the answer he was looking for appeared in his sheepish brain. His brain reminded him of a huge bull, with a ring in his nose, he had seen one time. He instantly liked the idea of looking like a huge strong bull instead of a small sheepish sheep. He bleated and pleaded with the Shepherd until finally he got the nose ring he so badly wanted. Now he was an individual — not like the other sheep. At first all the other sheep laughed at our hero, but after listening to his explanation about individuality their brains started to change tunes: “Maybe he has something there.” Would you believe it? No more than a month went by before all the sheep on the beautiful green hillside in Utah were munching grass with rings in their noses.
Real individuality does exist. It is always natural. It is never contrived. It can not be acquired. It is there right now waiting to be discovered by any brave soul who is willing to get rid of everything he has accumulated that is not part of his natural individuality.
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Inner Life Exercise
Become extremely interested in finding out where you are going wrong. Question yourself in a new and objective way. Don’t blindly assume that because you feel strongly about something, it is correct. Seeing where we are wrong is on a level above where we are wrong. This absolutely changes everything.
“Real individuality does exist. It is always natural. It is never contrived. It can not be acquired. It is there right now waiting to be discovered by any brave soul who is willing to get rid of everything he has accumulated that is not part of his natural individuality.”
It’s comical, we having been adding to ourselves all of our lives with very unhappy results (our happiness always seems to lie around the next corner and then the next corner, on and on and on), Why not try something new, “remove” what is blocking our happiness to discover what is already there, hidden and awaiting our discovery. Great inner life story!