Unorthodox Angles/Andrew Gramling
The Path to Self-Fulfillment: Part VIII– The Web of Definitions
By Andrew Gramling and Harry Petsanis
A continuation of our series on personal evolution, truth, and accountability.
Do not allow the opinions, judgments, or diagnoses of others to define you if your goal is to become a fully autonomous individual. We’ve been conditioned from the earliest age to accept the labels and stigmas that people categorize us with. This is both a personal and professional anchor that we allow to be attached to our ankle that keeps us firmly where other people want us.
If a doctor says that we’re sick, and we need to take a certain medication to make us better, we just accept their prognosis as if it is the gospel, often because we are lazy, as well as believing they have our best interest at heart, which they truly may or may not. As we grow older, we lose that polyanic perception of the world and the people within it, giving us a clearer sense of what is really going on beneath the surface. There’s a saying that says if a doctor cures a patient, they lose a client. Not everyone consciously or even subconsciously wants to help you, especially if they perceive that doing so has a potential cost for themselves.
We come to understand that many people define us and pigeon hole us because of their own insecurities and issues. A person who allows themselves to be defined by the words and judgments of others becomes a slave to that person and their words. The old saying goes- “If you allow someone to control your emotions, you allow them to control you.” Some people define emotions as- “Energy in motion.” There is an energetic cost for being ensnared by someone else’s words, but a position of balance and calm is a powerful place from which to act.
It isn’t just your right to question everyone and everything, it is your duty, and no one else’s. It is your life; no one else can live it for you, and you should never allow anyone to tell you how to live it, or to manipulate you in a way where you are now living it under the words that you have allowed someone to imprison you with..
A great saying and motto to live by is, “Consider the source.” Don’t listen to what someone is saying to truly under stand their words. Listen to why they are saying it. People are often like crabs in a barrel. When one crab tries to crawl out, the other crabs do not expend their energy following the crab who wants to transcend their circumstances out of the barrel. They exhaust all of their energy trying to claw it back in. Sometimes it’s an accountability issue. When you achieve something, it gives other people no excuse to not be able to do so, which can give some people a look into the mirror they are not ready for.
Regardless of how you were raised, what you were taught and how you were programmed, it is your job to break free from that conditioning, and to under stand that the only person that can define you is you, if you want to experience true freedom and sovereignty. The reason so many people suffer is because they automatically acquiesce under the weight of other people’s opinions and judgments. If someone says we’re a bad person, we accept that as if it is some sort of divine judgment. If a doctor tells us we have a condition that’s hereditary or irreversible, we go along with their findings. Don’t just look for a second opinion, third opinion, or fourth opinion, understand to break free from the shackles that other people want to impose on you. The opinion that matters most is the one you have of yourself.
