Do You Dare to be Different? To Think Different?

BEING UNPOPULAR AND AN OUTCAST is often necessary to become a visionary. Experiencing loneliness and isolation might sometimes be necessary to become revered and followed. If you don’t spend some time reflecting about what goes on in your mind, how can you ever proceed in the way that is you.
Ignoring what goes on in other people’s souls – did anybody ever come to grief that way? No. But if you won’t keep track of what goes on in your mind and what your own soul is doing – how can you not be unhappy.
It’s about truth – the truth about who you are: and what you want and will sacrifice for having just that. Are you being honest about this? Are you ready to pay the price for having those things you dream about? Make no mistake, most people are not.
How people perceive your truth passes through three stages – First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Say you wish to become a pianist, an artist or an aviator. Or a truck driver.
Expect to be mocked, criticized, ignored – even avoided. "Have your heard, Charlie is of the trolley-he wants to become ..."
You want to leave the parents proud about your choices, achievements, etc. Well, it might not always happen in the way you expected! You might in fact have to 'disappoint' them first.
Photo by Luz Mendoza

How the redbreast got its colour.

"But little by little he gained courage, flew close to him, and drew with his little bill a thorn that had become imbedded in the brow of the Crucified One. And as he did this there fell on his breast a drop of blood from the face of the Crucified One;—it spread quickly and floated out and colored all the little fine breast feathers.

"Then the Crucified One opened his lips and whispered to the bird: "Because of thy compassion, thou hast won all that thy kind have been striving after, ever since the world was created."

As soon as the bird had returned to his nest his young ones cried to him: "Thy breast is red! Thy breast feathers are redder than the roses!"

"It is only a drop of blood from the poor man's forehead," said the bird; "it will vanish as soon as I bathe in a pool or a clear well."

But no matter how much the little bird bathed, the red color did not vanish—and when his little young ones grew up, the blood-red color shone also on their breast feathers, just as it shines on every Robin Redbreast's throat and breast until this very day."

Christ Legends, by Selma Lagerlöf

 

Photo by Luca Huter