Do you ever feel pressure to be like someone else, even though they are very different from you?
Do you compromise your ideals to please others?
Do you cave to pressure from peers?
Do you feel like you have to live up to someone else’s expectations, even though they aren’t your expectations?
If so, maybe it’s time to more faithfully value, honor and obey God’s plan for you rather than trying to be someone you are not.
It’s okay to be different.
In my practice of Christian Science, I have discovered that it’s paramount to be comfortable with being different than others. It’s impossible to survive, let alone thrive, in one’s practice of truth if one is not.
Christian Science teaches truths that are polar opposites of popular belief. For instance, the position of life in Spirit, not in matter, is contrary to the teaching of most schools. The practice of relying upon Truth-based prayer for healing the body of disease is foreign to most people. Leaning on God as a first course of action, rather than a later course of action, is not considered as an option by many.
When one practices Christian Science the way it’s meant to be practiced, and starts living routines and cultivating attitudes that are outside mainline thinking, one is going to stand out as different. It’s not a “bad” different. It’s just different because it’s not the way the majority thinks and acts.
But if one is a slave to popularity, and is more concerned with how he looks in other people’s eyes than with living true to truth, he ends up compromising his ideals, sacrificing his joys, and diluting his practice. In the end, he is as nothing. He gets stuck in a limbo land of knowing what the right is, but not having enough courage or conviction to follow through. He becomes a patsy of common consent, and it’s an unhappy place to be.
One cure is to be clear that it’s okay to be different. We don’t have to be like everyone else to still be their friends, find common good to share, and participate in community activities. We’re all children of God. But it is very important that we live true to our highest understanding of right. Only then, can we have a free conscience, which is crucial to successful spiritual growth and demonstration.
If we compromise to please others, in the end, we please no one.
Please God first even if it makes you stand out.
It’s okay to be different.
thanks for the interesting post today, Evan. for years I have been told, “there is something different about you” and I’ve always felt it was because of my belief system and have been grateful that it stands out.
Outstanding Evan!!! (Meant in every way). I was just speaking with someone about this thought last night. So helpful to have more clarity brought to the issue. Thank you!
Boy Oh Boy, Evan, you should take every Spirit View Blog and publish it as a book on how to live a successful life. WE ARE ALL UNIQUE, each reflecting God in eternal ways, for the simple explanation that God is eternal. Why look at others? Why be Jelouse of their accomplishments? I Love myself, not as a mortal trying to become, but one who has already arrived at being UNIQUE.
Oh Evan I don’t know how to thank you enough for the benefits I am learning from your blogs. What you are and what you have accomplished now reminds me of what I have read which says something in this context: someone is sitting under the shade [of a tree] because someone thought of planting a tree. I have shared your blog to a member of my family across the sea and she said it’s very helpful too!
Oh Evan, fantastic inspiration to all today! Thank you and to the commenters as well! Facing the fear of feeling rejected is the root of fearing to be different! Once understood that being UNIQUE is the only being that we all have then Love has freed us to the Uniqueness of Soul!