Who made the rules you follow?

We are all, each of us, fortunate to know different kinds of people.

It can be so much fun to hang out with friends and family, bounce ideas off of each other, share our lives and our thoughts, and be part of a group of people, a community. There are many amazing people to meet and get to know. No two humans are exactly alike, and we need the differences in opinion, outlooks, likes and dislikes, that we bring to each other.

We help each other grow and become more of who we can be by having different ways of looking at life, and different ways of living. It is a gift to become inspired while seeing someone else create something incredible. We give to each other this way. You might say we are wealthy in people.

A fusion has been happening more in recent decades, as we step away from our individual groups and mix together. The mixing of ideas, races, religions, genders, musical styles, art, fashion, life styles, healing modalities, and the creating of brand new ways of being and looking, new ways of seeing each other, are helping us to evolve.

We are shaking up all of those old rules we followed.

There are more people able and willing to look at living together here from a brand new perspective, to see each other more clearly. There’s more freedom and permission than ever before to welcome into our lives people from different cultures and outlooks. We certainly cannot afford to keep doing things the old way, through fear and isolation, us against them. A change in attitude is happening on this planet. This is spiritual evolution.

There are many rules to change and to break along the way. What is a rule but an agreement of some kind? In order to create a new world, humans have had to break many rules, over and over again. Just think of the rules you’ve broken, that you’ve had to bend, twist, and break – to become who you are now. When someone is allowing themselves to be held back by decrees written by others, it is a stifling experience.

I am not talking about breaking the law here, though throughout history it has been very necessary to break and change unreasonable and heinous laws. I am speaking more to the social mores, the unwritten rules, the agreements, the lines drawn in the sand that someone decided should not be crossed.

“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

Whose rules do you follow?

The group you came from has rules, and you agreed to those rules when you were born into that group. If you will examine whose rules you are governed by on a daily basis, then you can more clearly write your own set of new rules and agreements. You can come up with something that is better for you than following a rule written by somebody from several generations ago that makes absolutely no sense to your 21st century life. You can more honestly examine the agreements that exist in your relationships with others. You can look at the rules you’ve decided for yourself over the years – do they still work today?

We were all encouraged to obey, follow the rules, and be ‘good’. It was deeply programmed in many of us, and often it helped us become thoughtful, polite, and kind people. I see a lot of those rules as guide posts on how to treat each other, and how to behave in public. They can also be deeply stunting to one finding one’s own truth. If you are being held back by a rule that keeps you limited in range, maybe it’s time to end that agreement.

As a member of the punk rock generation, I understand this one clearly. Rock, punk, metal, rap, and hip hop are all healing creations, speaking to new generations who needed to destroy the old way of doing things because it was not their own, and did so simply by creating something new. Artists break rules. That is also the healing power of art, and why the arts have so often been attacked in a country where people must be controlled by rules. But that is a different post for another day.

"Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them as an artist."  -Pablo Picasso

• ©Kris Cahill
  Image: ‘Walrus Mosh Pit’ on Geek Philosopher