Final Essay

Jordan Lemke

Final Draft

29 April 2014

Free Your Mind, Free Your Life

If I had to classify myself under any sort of political party I am the flaming liberal.  I do not like that I live in a world where people that hold specific titles are under the impression that they have control over me.  I also hate that I am surrounded by people living their lives as puppets being controlled by the ultimate green monster, money.  We are told since the day we enter this cruel world that in order to achieve full happiness you need to hold a high level position at an impressive billion dollar company with a family and all this should be accomplished while in your thirties or forties.  WAKE UP WORLD!  So many people are consumed by money and I think it is because our culture is telling them that is how it should be. Television, the internet, and magazine articles always feature some sort of get rich quick scheme or how to better manage your money or how to make a million by the time you’re thirty-five; utterly ridiculous.  I do not disrespect those who decide to set high goals for their futures that involve becoming wildly successful because I am a huge advocate of the phrase, “to each his own”.  What I have the biggest problem with is when these goals are set out of malicious intentions, in other words only setting these goals to end up with money and not caring about the means of obtaining the wealth.

I am not entirely sure where the cultivation of extreme free thinking came about in my life, if I had to assume what got it started it might have been my frustration at the end of sophomore year.  I hated being at college living in a dorm room the size of a closet, I was unclear of my career choice which gave both myself and my parents anxiety, I wanted a summer job in the Outer Banks of North Carolina but things unfortunately fell through and I felt like I was trapped.  I knew I did not want to be at home for the summer because we just moved early last year and there was nothing in this new house for me to look forward to really.  My parents were stressed about money and my brother had started abusing pills; nothing made me want to go home to those toxic situations.  Then in April I went with my father and grandmother to Budapest and Amsterdam and my eyes were opened to how different parts of the world are.  I had been overseas before, after I graduated high school I went to Spain but I was young enough that I didn’t really appreciate being in another culture and could not fully embrace the fact that I was in a completely new country.  I returned from the trip overseas and my summer job on the beach ended up working out, aside from not knowing what I wanted to do with my future, things were looking pretty positive. 

I went to Corolla, North Carolina and my world was transformed.  I had found my inner peace living on the ocean.  My eyes and mind were introduced to the possibility that you do not have to live your life how most people think it should be, in a cubicle behind a computer desk.  Talking to locals about the off season and hearing them talking about how through the months of January through April the majority of them will go traveling all over the world made me sick with jealously.  I have no intentions of marrying or having children anytime soon and my only goal in life is to travel the world; there is something so intoxicatingly exciting about being a complete stranger in a country that you know so little about.  That first summer will be three months that I will never forget because I know it gave me the confidence to start asking “why”?  

By asking “why” I mean asking why in regards to everything.  Why do people think that happiness is measured in monetary value?  Why are people that are different from us harshly judged and ridiculed? Why are people classified as ugly and pretty? Why is there extreme wealth in the world when extreme poverty still exists? Why do people think that they have a right to punish other people through means of violence and restrictions? When will the power of peace and acceptance of individuality overcome the power of having power?

I found this very interesting article on Off The Grid News written by Andrew (literally the name for the author in the website) and the title speaks volumes in itself, “Is Free Thinking A Mental Illness?”  When I read this title my exact first thought was “are you kidding me with this right now?” DSM-IV stands for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and they identify a new mental illness call “oppositional defiant disorder”, ODD.  Defined as an “ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior,” symptoms include questioning authority, negativity, defiance, argumentativeness, and being easily annoyed (Andrew).  The article also mentions that in the past these behaviors would be defined as personality traits but are now considered diseases by a group of “experts” that have nothing better to do with their time apparently.  No worries though, with a few pills your disease will be cured in no time at all. 

There have been instances in my recent life experiences that I plain and simple have found that I just do not agree with many mainstream views.  For example, one night over spring break I was at dinner with my grandparents, my parents and my younger brother.  My grandparents were asking about my future plans as they always do and I begin to mention the Outer Banks and how excited I am to get back down there after the school year is over; my father interrupts my speaking to comment on my “summer vacation”.  Why should I have a problem with such a small comment?  As there are other deeper issues rooted in the main flame of anger with this statement, my main problem is that when I am at the Outer Banks I work 50 hour weeks.  It was then that I realized that my parents are also trapped enough by mainstream view that a lifestyle on the ocean is just a vacation. Just because my career goals are not centered around living a 9-5 Monday through Friday work day does not mean my only other option is to claim my welfare checks and live in poverty.  Right now, to me, living near the ocean with the possibility of getting my yoga instructors license and teaching yoga sounds like it would bring me volumes more happiness.  I understand entirely that this type of lifestyle choice is not conventional but why does it have to be? If doing this makes me happy then why should anyone else be worried about whether or not I am going to be making six figures by the time I am twenty-six; because people are constantly swept up by the business and lives of others.

To be quite candid, I am not a fan of the way this country is run.  I was watching a show titles “Alaska State Troopers” the other day and on this particular episode a state trooper was spying on two men because they were fishing in illegal parts of a stream.  Here are the problems I had with this; why should there be any restrictions on where some can and cannot fish, did the fish tell you they don’t like it when they swim past and they get caught in this part of the stream rather than the legal fishing parts of the stream? The other problem I had with this is that no human should ever be spied on period, especially by malicious figures looking to punish someone for their actions.  Humans with authority naturally think for some reason that their entitlement deems those below them as lesser humans which then gives them the right to impose much harsher on the lives of those “below” them.  This is wrong; disgusting and wrong.  Titles obtained through occupational standards does not make me think that you are smarter than me and can tell me how I should live my life, tell yourself how to live your life and forget worrying about others because people are going to do what they want anyway.  To this I often get the response, but it is just authority’s job to help.  To that I say, how do authorities know what kind of help I need?

 “Liberals love to think of themselves as intellectual and nuanced, but liberalism is incredibly simplistic. It’s nothing more than ‘childlike emotionalism applied to adult issues’”(Hawkins). John Hawkins wrote this on September 21, 2007 on Rightwing News.  The source is a little dated yes but I think this is a liable example to show how narrow minded people are about the views of others.  The article is written primarily for political reasons bashing liberals for their incapacity to be knowledgeable about politics in general but it highlights the opinions people hold for liberal thinkers such as me.  Since when is having an open mind and thinking that every human has a right to their own choices and lifestyles is childlike? Statements like these are the struggles I have faced since cultivating a liberal lifestyle.  So many people doubt you and think less of you for your way of thinking but deep down you know that you are not wrong, no one is wrong or right, and you just accept that people harvest different opinions for pretty much everything.

I became tiresome of reading articles bashing liberals and free thinking when I came across this very refreshing article on Entrepreneur by Ray Silverstein.  Silverstein introduces the idea that in the workplace opposing opinions than that of your own are positive and help develop new ideas.  He says, “If you want to be an effective leader, encourage your employees to think for themselves, not follow you blindly… Banish the expression ‘Great minds think alike.’ I like this one by General George Patton better: ‘If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking’” (Silverstein).  People often fear changes and things that are different from what they’ve known their whole life but as explained in the previous quote, thinking for yourself only makes you a better person.    

Living my life as a wild flower waiting for the next gust of wind to pick me up and take me somewhere new is the most refreshing way I have ever lived my life.  I stopped asking the question why and began accepting that things just are.  There will always be articles written about how to get rich quick and the education system is never going to cease to exist, but fighting these things and getting angry over them is a waste of energy to me.  I have come to the realization that accepting people for the choices they make and the lives they choose to live brings the greatest joy and inner peace that money could never buy.

                  

Work Cited

Andrew. "Is Free Thinking A Mental Illness?" Off The Grid News. N.p., 8 Oct. 2010. Web. 29 

     Apr. 2014.

Hawkins, John. "Explaining Liberal Thinking In A Single Column." Right Wing News. N.p., 21
     Sept. 2007. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.

Silverstein, Ray. "Great Minds Don't Think Alike." Entrepreneur. N.p., 21 Feb. 2010. Web. 29 
     Apr. 2014.