Choose your social environment carefully and express yourself
Do you feel that you’re not understood by your social environment because of your lifestyle, your beliefs or your passions? Do you sometimes feel lonely and suffer from it? Be aware, you’re not alone and someone, somewhere, is eager to hear your voice!
Stop justifying yourself or explaining your heart’s desires to people who are prisoners of conventional wisdom and status quo. Don’t blame them either, they simply won’t understand you because they’re conditioned by their own limiting beliefs.
Ibiza: beauty, freedom and lifestyle
I recently visited the Island of Ibiza for a week’s vacation. This island is a pure gem of beauty and vibrates with an unexplainable positive energy and freedom.
It’s not a coincidence if hippies, religious communities, new age freaks, clubbing aficionados, artists, writers or outrageously rich people fell in love with this island.
This place is really unconventional. However, my most amazing discovery was to meet people from every walk of life, nationality and profession who established themselves on the Island to express their passions and lifestyle.
These people were all somehow unconventional and expressed similar experiences:
- They were considered a bit crazy by their family, colleagues or society.
- They had a dream they were obsessed with.
- They realized that their social environment was not supportive enough
for their vision to become a reality. - They found the courage in themselves to follow their own path.
- They quit their country to live their dreams somewhere else.
- They rebuilt their social network.
- They expressed no regrets.
All these extraordinary individuals had to face incomprehension and hostility from their environment because of their ideas or lifestyle. However, they overcame these limits and designed the life they had dreamed of.
Whatever you dreams, lifestyle or path in life, you need a positive and supportive social environment to express yourself and grow. Our society doesn’t always encourage differences:
- Uncommon beliefs and ideas
- Alternative lifestyles
- Unconventional physical appearances
- Religious expression
- Cultural differences
If you are in this situation, do not isolate yourself and let frustration grow. You may not be understood by your family, your colleagues or society, but you have received the birthright to be different and unique; It’s printed in your DNA. Even if your DNA may not determine your beliefs or preferences, you are you, and for that reason you deserve to express your personality and be happy.
Sometimes, the best solution to find a supportive social environment is to redesign your own. You don’t necessarily need to quit your hometown or your country, but you can :
- Carefully choose supportive and respectful friends.
- Get a coach who will listen and help you express your potential.
- Build your own community on Internet.
- Advertise to meet people with same interests or lifestyles
- Join or set up a mastermind group of people who have similar objectives in order to share ideas, strategies, successes and failures and grow together.
Choose your environment carefully and don’t let anyone or anything stands on your way to happiness. This is your birthright!
Once for all, accept who you are; you may not be perfect according to social standards, but you are you, and there is no other way to live your life.
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{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Good advice, but it is not easy for one to choose his environment at times. Many people are victims of circumstances and have to adjust to it.
By the way, Ibiza sounds like an interesting culturepot and yet a serene place to relax. Hope to spend my vacation there too.
Paul Tech´s last blog ..Robot Presides Over Wedding Ceremony
Paul,
I agree, we often adapt ourselves to our environment, which is positive. However, when our environment is not supportive at all, compromising can become very heavy, and we lose a lot of energy in the process. This energy could be used to follow our path and achieve our dreams.
Concerning Ibiza, it’s an amazing place. It’s not only sex, drug and clubbing; nature is fantastic, and if you want to relax that’s a beautiful place to go. Avoid July and August it’s too much. May, June and September are the best seasons.
Thanks, I really appreciate your comment.
Excellent post! I have experienced the same situations that you describe. I was looking for what was wrong with me. Then I realized that my environment was wrong not me! This was an eye-opener. Thanks for these advices.
When your life is at stake there is no point in compromising.
Living only to fade and fade is no life – not in the long term.
I have a pretty high threshold of boredom, witness the jobs I have done, but my creed has been that when life calls – answer it.
David@Quillcards Ecards´s last blog ..Encountering Elephants In India
David,
“my creed has been that when life calls – answer it” Very well said! And life has so much to offer!
Thanks for sharing, I appreciate
Robi,
Thanks for sharing your experience! It sounds familiar to me too
You are always welcome
Twitter: BothEyesShut
May 20, 2010
Dear Steve,
What a medicinal post. If there’s anything in the world Western society needs, it’s permission to color outside the lines.
Poisonally, I believe the most dangerous presumption in Southern California (where I hang my hat) is the presiding opinion that we Californians are cutting-edge trendsetters, liberally open-minded and free-spirited sprites just traipsing around the conventions of American orthodoxy as though we were not, ourselves, attenuated by the rails on which we run. How does one escape an unhealthy atmosphere if one does not perceive detriment? Many thoroughly unhappy people call their environs paradise, never considering that their roots may sip from toxic soil.
On another note, someone commented before me that leaving a circumstance may not be best, and another commented that it may not be necessary.
I suggest that it remains possible for one to perceive one’s environment, people, places and things and all, however one should like. This alone can solve many problems, but of course there is the interjection of the paradigms and opinions of other people, most of whom will be in accord with one another, and this requires as much courage and self-faith as striking out for Ibeza or Majorca or wherever.
Perhaps it is the ability to dismiss the negativity of one’s environment, the capacity to shrug it off for either vacation or for good, which baptizes our nerves and brings us buoyantly back to life in our creative endeavors, goals, dreams, whatever.
Great post, Sir. I love your place, here.
Yours Truly,
-BothEyesShut
Interesting! I didn’t realize that there was an island dedicated for people like me. Yes, I have felt unconventional in my ideas and for the most part feel as thought my ideas and philosophies on life are a bit ahead of its time. But I’ve learned thorugh experience how to channel this in a manner that is more grounded so that I can still offer service and value to others in a manner they can “understand.” Nice post !!!
Baker,
There is an island for people like you and me and we found it! This is a place where we find inspiration and love. We try to share that gift we’ve received with humility.
Thanks for sharing I appreciate
BothEyesShut,
You bring up interesting perspectives:
- Are we conscious how our environment affects us?
- The courage to face our environment vs escaping it
- Putting our environment into perspective
- Or modifying our perceptions of reality
Thank you for enriching this discussion with thoughtful perspectives.
Twitter: niceartlife
May 20, 2010
Interesting article, it’s food for thought for me, these are nice reflexions about living your life the way you like to live it. I think that most of us (including myself) are not enough conscious about the effects of our environment on us. When we do we can face it really.
I like your blog a lot!
(Thanks for your comment, I doubt also about the energy flow in that house, must be disturbing indeed, although I like the design).
Hey NiceArtLife,
Thanks for visiting, I’m happy you got something out of this post and appreciate this place. By the way, I share your doubts about that famous house, I couldn’t live there
Well Steve you make me think. I agree that our environment influences us. I think that sometimes we pick an environment that will not challenge us so that we can remain in our self created cocoon.
I have never been one that allowed others to define me and I think that your suggestions of finding supportive people in your life is stage one. I created a new family because I didn’t like my family of origin. Your post ,says to me, to take charge of your life, give up being a victim and enjoy your choices. Thanks be well
Workinghard, thanks for sharing your thoughts on this post. Yes, “remaining in our self created cocoon” may not be challenging but can be “toxic”, as someone wrote in its comment. Sometimes people try to change their beliefs, behaviors or strategies, but seldom question their environment.
Twitter: happinesswisdom
June 27, 2010
We’re curious…..who decides, who is conventional! It’s funny how society labels our freest spirits with a seemingly derogative term. I only hope I’m lucky enough to have somebody label me as unconventional some day!
Michael
Michael,
Yes you’re right who decides? I believe that we decide. When we have the ability to rise above what is thought to be possible or not in order to follow our own path and accomplish our dreams, then we find happiness. Following our own path is already something unconventional in our society.
I’m glad to meet an unconventional person
Thanks for your comments, I really appreciate.
-Steve
Hello Steve,
Thanks for your “follow” on BC.
I liked most of your quotes and found them inspiring. Mostly, this article spoke to my soul as one who has been struggling throughout life to be accepted and understood. Being outside the “bell curve” can be a lonely and difficult place to be; and yet, I believe most of the “great” people in history, those who contributed to society, those who changed the world of ideas, those heroes were also outside the bell curve.
Being outside of convention often felt like a lonely and sad place. I didn’t understand that I was different–and not in a negative way–and that was all right. I believe the process of being comfortable with one’s eccentricity is usually very painful. However, only through a process called “differentiation” can we hope to become whole and at peace with ourselves. I’ve progressed along these lines but still have miles to go…
I lived on islands for years and agree with your perception of island dwellers. I enjoyed my long stay but still found that there are more eccentric people in my home country than on these islands. My greatest comfort has been connecting with like-thinking people on the internet, and although it is not ideal, I feel more connected than I ever did in my island life. Living in a different country can be extremely challenging.
I don’t regret my decision to live far from everything and everyone familiar, however. I learned very much about myself in that environment. One thing I learned is that you can never change your cultural background and that can be a time-bomb in relationships.
Thanks for sharing your views and reaching out. (By the way, are you a life coach?)
Hello,
Thank you for sharing your experience. I really appreciate. I notice in the words you use:
“has been struggling throughout life to be accepted and understood” :
We can not “try” to be accepted. We can only accept ourselves with our differences. As we are mirrors this total self-acceptance act is shared through our vibrational energy and we get accepted by others. Struggling just enforce our differences.
“One thing I learned is that you can never change your cultural background and that can be a time-bomb in relationships” :
You’re right we cannot change our cultural background and we don’t need to if we totally accept our uniqueness.
Living in a supportive environment eventually helps us in this self acceptance process.
Have a fantastic day!