#40 Fearing Disapproval

"Permitting yourself to be held back from progressing because you fear the disapproval of people you don't admire is madness" - Johnny Soporno When one rationally stops to think about why we care about other's opinions whom really, truly don't care about us, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. However, we all do it. Okay, I'm exaggerating: only 99.999% (approximately) do that:)!

Theoretically I would venture to guess that it comes hardwired into each of us biologically. In pre-historic times, when humans travelled in bands and lived in nomadic tribes, and the average person didn't venture more than a 100 miles from their birthplace in any direction (and that was being really far from home), their survival, to a huge extent, depended on the support of the village. To be an outcast back then meant certain death. If the proverbial powers-that-be or your neighbors didn't like you or were threatened by your "uniqueness", you were out on your ear, either killed outright, or sent out into the wild to fend for yourself, which was a vertiable death sentence, in-and-of-itself. Not real good options to choose from. So, to generalize, to conform meant to prosper and survive.

Well here in the 21st century in the United States of America where I live, the consequences of dissent have changed considerably. In fact, there's even profit to be made from it if you know how to leverage it. No matter what gender, color, creed, religion, socio-economic group, we all hunger for love and acceptance at a core, biological level, there's always a certain culture or lifestyle somewhere in just about every major city or online (now that the world is virtually connected) where you can have your basic needs of human interaction and companionship met without having fear of being isolated socially. To not be your true self, doing what you want to do because you fear judgment of those of little or no consequence is truly unnecessary and "madness". No one is going to appeal to all demographics anyway. If you even came close you'd have to be a wishy-washy shapeshifter. Simply stated, the most important choice a person can make is being true to their individual and/or collective purpose and letting the rest take care of itself.