“ I know I am on the right track for a passionate, full life if I wake up a little afraid every day.”
Note: I briefly discussed self-expression in my January 25th blog post “Set your Life Compass to Satisfaction” as one of three elements to creating your personal or life compass with its companions being personal values and life commitments. However, self expression is a whole topic unto itself which deserves a thorough treatment. This posting is dedicated to that treatment.
Each of us has a unique calling. Some of us are virtually born knowing what that calling is. Others of us have to enjoin in a struggle that combines an epic quest with mountain moving. Regardless, our calling awaits us insisting on its expression. How do we know that we have found our calling? By the passion, the joy, and yes, the satisfaction we feel when we are expressing it. If so many great things come from pursuing ones calling why aren’t we all doing it all the time?
In the unique nature of a calling lies a double edged sword. Expressing ones calling is the juicy spot. When I am expressing myself within my calling I have full integrity with my internal desires and inclinations. I am one happy camper. However, the same innate characteristics of a calling that provide internal resonance can easily cause, especially for pioneers, external dissonance. Callings often come in a form that may not align with situational culture, social standards, institutional inertia, or success norms. These types of callings demand a change in contemporary standards, traditions, norms and/or structures creating a demand for leadership. As a change professional, I can say unequivocally that, at minimum, change is met with resistance. At worst, it can be met with violent opposition.
Harmonious Self-Expression
Before I tackle change demanding self-expression I want to acknowledge that not all personal expression causes conflict. It is our unique self expressions that, no matter how narrow and benign, make us singular as individuals. However, for the rare person whose self expression fits entirely within contemporary standards traditions, norms and structures no conflict arises. In a previous post I used a narrow, benign example of a mom whose crab bisque was her point of pride. That aspect of her self-expression will not meet resistance. Even the chef whose gastronomical offerings are his defining expression is unlikely to experience push back from anyone other than food critics. He is exposing himself to public opinion but not upsetting social apple carts. To carry that concept a step further, if you set out to change the public school program to all organic dishes or provide healthy food choices to starving children you will run into institutional inertia, traditions and norms. Resistance is sure to ensue demanding a level of leadership that the previous two examples do not.
Self-expression encounters increasing resistance on three vectors – the level of impact in the world, the level of difference of the expression from the norm, and the relative aspect of the expression within the person’s life.
Level of Impact in the World
The greater the impact of an expression in the world, the greater the push back. This resistance is the natural, automatic reaction to change or threat of change. As the impact increases, the push back in turn not only increases but becomes more hostile. Throughout history most of the greatest agents of change have met an untimely, relatively violent demise. The fatal response is not discriminating. Agents of change have met untimely deaths whether
- Secular – assassination of Muhammad Anwar El Sadat, Abraham Lincoln, Malcolm X, etc.
- Spiritual – murder of Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, Uiger riot deaths, etc.
- Warlike – battlefield of Alexander the Great, suicide of Hitler, etc.
- Peaceful – assassination of Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, etc.
Most of us do not have to fear for our life due to the impact our self expression has in the world. However, there is a lesson to be learned in noting the potential potency of reaction to change. The more your self-expression impacts the world, the greater consideration you need to take in preparing and supporting those impacted to make the shift.
Level of Difference from the Norm
Self-expression has endless possibilities for manifestation that are realized in the world through personal presentation, social engagement, written word, professional accomplishment, hobbies, artistic achievement, evangelizing ideas, etc.. Many of us express ourselves through more than one channel in very different ways. Regardless of how we express ourselves or the areas within which we choose to express ourselves, we always express into a social norm. The norm for the Goldman and Sachs executive suites will be very different than a non-profit providing homeless care services. Or, the norms for a mosque in Damascus will be substantially distinguishable from a San Francisco Bay Area Unitarian church. Or, the culture and expectations for a black tie Haiti relief fundraiser in the Hamptons will contrast that of an AIDs fundraising bike-a-thon in LA. No matter the aspect you are expressing or the norm you are expressing into, the more radical your expression is from its contextual cultural norm the more likely you are to encounter negative reaction. If you wear a clown suite in a New York Stock Exchange trading pit it may hinder your trades by adding time for those around you to react and take it in. The more out of sync you express from the norm the more likely others will need time to take it in and react, or simply close down.
I have my own version of an aspect of my personal expression of being out of sync with the norm. I am a transsexual woman. (Born a man but transitioned to live as a woman after I was an adult.) Fifteen years ago when I decided that I needed to make this change I committed to living a mainstream life, avoiding marginalization while being open about my past. Most of my life is lived without that particular aspect coming into play or affecting my day-to-day existence. I would suppose that it is not unlike the experience of being very tall, or very short, or a rare, exotic ethnicity among an otherwise homogeneous group. In rare instances someone will bring it up or ask why my voice is so deep for a woman. When that comes up, given my commitment to transparency, I explain openly, talk about my experience and/or reasons for my choice as the situation calls for it. It is typically a short conversation that does not require a lot of detail. Mostly it is about acknowledging the facts and putting a human face on what is for most a strange phenomenon. Being that ambassador is my way of minimizing a potential acceptance gap that might be caused by my variation from the norm.
Relative Aspect of the Expression
By aspect I am referring to the relative position that an expression plays in your life. Is the aspect in your personal foreground or is it part of the wall paper of your life? Is that aspect what you are known for or is it just part of the colorful tapestry that is you? An easy way to think of it is, do you use that aspect as the principal noun or as a deeper part of your description? Try out these two descriptions.
- She is an Asian woman who is a motivational speaker.
- She is a motivational speaker who is an Asian woman.
Although both describe the same person, the identity emphasis changes from Asian in the first description to motivational speaker in the second. That emphasis changes how she views herself and, by extension, how others view her. There is no right or wrong here. We are simply noting where the emphasis of the describer lies. In the not so famous 1990 movie, “Q&A,” the story, among many controversial subjects, looks at a young white DA’s racism. In a scene in which he asks a black detective about how his race affects him as a policeman, the detective responds in effect, “You want to know how my color impacts me professionally? When I was a Marine I was green. When I became a cop I turned blue.” For this man, his identity was tied to his profession rather than his race.
Similarly for me, my transsexuality is in the background. It is there and certainly not something that I ignore. However, it has little bearing on my professionally choices and activities, or other aspects of my life. I have a full, rich and dynamic life which has not been hindered by my life choice. If anything, my choice, and my subsequent full self-expression, has provided me deep satisfaction.
Passion and Courage
So what is the point? Self-expression provides the juice and passion with which we live our lives. In many ways it is a source, if not the source, of energy, joy, and ambition. On the other side of it the more your self-expression impacts others, diverges from the norm, and is in the foreground of your identity the more likely for you to lack social support, encounter social resistance, and struggle with institutional structure not designed with your expression in mind. So, self-expression takes courage. I am planning on talking about courage at length in a future article. For now, I will say that I know I am on the right track for a passionate, full life if I wake up a little afraid every day.
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