“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd.  The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever before,” Einstein.  I’m working on a bit of a theme here: doing the hard work of being who we are regardless of any circumstances.  Perhaps given the events unfolding at work and at home/with friends I needed the reminder of the balancing act of being ourselves.  This has nothing to do with offending other people by being who we are or being wildly secure and only ever doing what we want—this has to do with boundaries and allowing for the ever-changing dance of who we are to evolve.  We need each other but we need to know ourselves more.  We need to rely on ourselves more than we do other people.  We need to have our skills and be clear on who we are before we can be anyone.  We don’t want to hurt others and the truth is we never know when we will need each other so we want to be careful to not hurt people in the process.  But if we trust the flow of the universe, we need to believe that we are always connected and resources will always be available to us.

When it comes to following the crowd, we need to know that the crowd exists for multiple reasons: the crowd shows us possibilities and options.  If we aren’t careful, however, it can also swallow us up and dictate who we are.  We don’t want to lose who we are so we need to be sharp enough to be clear and hold boundaries, but we need to be flexible and humble enough to adapt when necessary.  Everything in nature is cyclical and patterned and in constant flux/flow.  It always moves to its specific rhythm and we are all part of that—we need to find our specific rhythm and understand that we are in different melodies at different times of our lives. The flow and the music changes.  So the truth is it isn’t so much about walking alone to find ourselves in other places, it’s about learning to dance where we are when the song changes.  When we sacrifice who we are for the sake of the crowd we forget how to dance altogether—and that is what Einstein means.  Don’t blindly follow those around us, rather listen to the rhythm of our heart and soul and see how far that takes us.