Going Off the Beaten Path

Often, a major life event pushes someone off the societal path.
Before I continue, I wish to explain a matter.
I haven’t met a person who has not had challenges in their life. Nor have i met someone who didn’t present any introspection. The really is that there is no a beaten path where everyone walks at the same pace without any challenges.
There are commanlities in a group of people, similarilty in in words, actions, thoughts, and beliefs. This commonality is called a culture.

A culture is a conglomeration of the above mentioned factors that has a tendency to do something because that is just how it is or how everyone does this.

I wish to delve into the deeper in this culture.

Often, the culture is a habit or informal rules that has worked for many years over time.
The culture, for surgeons to see patients at the hospital very early in the morning because they have cases booked in the operating room starting at 7 a.m.
If they wait to see their patients after operating, a whole day would have passed, where other specialties are waiting for their recommendations. Logistically, rounding early in the morning works for many. After enough surgeons starting doing this, it became a culture. Rounding early was what the surgeons were taught in training and other doctors, nurses and staff now expect this behavior.

Another example of culture, not related to logistics.
In today’s culture, which is common in most of the world, in heterosexual relationships, a man initiates a romantic partnership with a woman.
From introducing himself, planning the first date, and initiating intimacy, this is a responsibility the man often takes.
Women have other responsibilities. This is not a man versus woman comparison.
It’s just a societal culture that I’m pointing out.

Is a woman wrong for waiting for a man to approach her? Is the culture right about expecting the woman to wait?
Nothing is right or wrong.

The question I’m asking is, what is effective?

Is following the culture of waiting for the man to initiate more effective than initiating first?

I honestly don’t know. I’m not a woman and cannot objectively measure waitng for men to talk to me versus initiating conversations with men.

It does pose a question. Why follow the culture if you personally haven’t tested it?

What I have found in my own experiments is that the ‘culture’ presents many philosophies and practices that are ineffective for me.

Following what others expect of me prevents me from seeing the person I truly am. It prevents me from understanding myself, and subsequently, acting from a place that is easy and effective.

The rituals and cultural expectations of the culture don’t serve me.

What I have seen is that they act as shackles for many around me.

The woman who doesn’t connect with a partial lover because of a cultural expectation may not be serving herself. She maybe missing out on a her life partner.

A response to this statement is that she was not interested enough.
After all, if she was serious, she would have thrown that culture out. And went for her goal.

This would be very close to the truth. Many of the worlds best, are exceedingly counter-culture. Because of their effectiveness, a culture is made around them – but this is not their intention.

The feeling I wish to share here is that my path forward towards peace, towards excellence, towards achieving my wildest dreams naturally pushes me out of the culture or the norm.

I often find the easiest people to talk to are the ones, due to life circumstance, are off the beaten path.
The culture has rejected them. What I see is that they’re on a path on their own.

They seem to be alongside the rest, but when examined carefully, they walk differently, talk differently. They were excluded from culture long ago, their only path forward was one they forged on their own.

Then there are those who understood the culture and walked away from it. When they see the herd moving right, they turn left. Through personal experimentation and understanding, they reached the conclusion that they did not need a life and death experience to push them out of the common path and away from the culture. They too live amongst us. On close examination, they talk differently and walk different. Their path is their own to forge.