Let me listen to me and not to them. —Gertrude Stein—
Our ears would fill with advice, if we listened to it: advertisers, evangelists, publishers, educators, all clamoring to market their products, try to get us to conform to their notions of what we should be. One of the dangers of a democratic society is confusing the individual and the mass—using statistical data to define persons instead of trends. “Trendiness” is a way of avoiding individuality.
To choose for ourselves means taking responsibility for our choices, saying, “I do this because I want to. Each of us has an interior voice that knows what we want. We know —even if the knowledge sometimes causes us pain—that we’re unique individuals, with goals, programs, and behaviors distinct from others’. Acknowledgment and enjoyment of our full humanity means owning our differences—listening to our own voices.
I am the expert on my own life. Today and every day let me be wise enough to consult myself.