True to Yourself

One thing I've learned over the years is that you have to be true to yourself, to your own nature, to your own concept of right and wrong. If you only live to match the desires and expectations of other people then you have lost part of yourself. Develop your own moral code - something that you can believe in and that is independent of your peers - and use it to weigh the expectations of other people.

Developing a moral code that is independent of your peers takes a fair bit of deep thinking. A useful exercise I use is the following:

A person has been locked into a room and, by sheer happenstance, you have been the power to make them happy or unhappy. No one except you will never know what happens in the room or that you were given such power over another person. You are the only person who will know about the choice you make. What choice should you make?

This exercise is specifically designed to remove any concept of "peer pressure". It focuses on your own nature and moral code, asking what you think you should do, independent of society.

Developing a moral code this way has helped me cope with the expectations and desires of other people - I am now more comfortable saying "no" to people, but am simultaneously more interested in saying "yes".

Finally, the following poem was a kind of inspiration for this thinking and is worth a read:

The Guy in the Glass by Dale Wimbrow, (c) 1934

When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf,
And the world makes you King for a day,
Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,
And see what that guy has to say.

For it isn't your Father, or Mother, or Wife,
Who judgement upon you must pass.
The feller whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the guy staring back from the glass.

He's the feller to please, never mind all the rest,
For he's with you clear up to the end,
And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the guy in the glass is your friend.

You may be like Jack Horner and "chisel" a plum,
And think you're a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you're only a bum
If you can't look him straight in the eye.

You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears
If you've cheated the guy in the glass.

P.S. "pelf" means "Money; riches; gain; generally conveying the idea of something ill-gotten."