ABANDONING THE RIGHT WAY

{ At the beautiful beer hall Pelikan - aren't the monkeys the best? }

A while ago I read an article on creative advice from hip hop artists - that I now can't find! One advice was do the opposite of what everybody else does, and the advice came from a male rapper who used to dress in pink, before everybody else did. I don't remember his name. Of course.
  Anyway.
  Lately I've come to realize two things about myself. One is that I like to take everything much too literal, and the other is that I actually think there is "a right way" to do things - and that these lines of thought are interlinked.

Let me give you an example. Even though I'm an emotional person, I prefer logic to emotion, knowing well that the exclusion of emotion is illogical. I'd much rather think "What should I do next" than "What is important for me to do". I prefer to keep it general rather than personal, although the personal "What is important for me to do" would give a much more constructive and relevant answer.
  That brings me to the "do everything opposite" theory versus "the right way". Even though I intellectually know there isn't "a right way", in my heart I actually believe there is. What's more, I believe it to be something that "everybody else" - you know those people? - knows but me. Oh, the paranoia. "The right way" makes me nervous and affects pretty much everything I do, from developing new work to writing blog comments to how I dress. Yes, it's that stupid. This nervousness comes from being a person who never managed to fit in, and because of that I got obsessed with exploring "the right way". It's not uncommon, I guess.
  "The right way" implies there is a wrong way, which there of course isn't. Life isn't an American rom com where the right choice is a pink house, a white dress and the guy - that's just one choice out of a gazillion. Which everybody knows - right?

The people I admire and am drawn to are those who go their own way. Focusing on doing that myself would make me much more happy, and much less nervous. As a teen, in particular, I used to do so, but over time I grew weary. It's not easy being the sour thumb in a small community. I've been reeling ever since, trying to find a balance. Maybe the idea of keeping balance is another thing I need to let go of, because maybe balance is momentary and not a lifestyle. Is a calm ocean really more balanced than the stormy, isn't it just two states of mind with an internal balance, which in turn balance one another?
  My point is, I need a heavy dose of "do the opposite", it's something I'll try to bring with me into 2013. Perhaps I should gather inspirational quotes in my diary to read when work goes stale and I begin glancing at others, rather than being my own operator.
  Ella, there is no right way.