The Trouble With Numbers

Your life is not a democracy.

What do I mean by that? Well, let's take this New Year's resolution thing for a start. Perhaps you have one but I won't presume, I'll talk about my own. Actually I have a New Year's intention, and I'll write more about Resolutions versus Intentions tomorrow.

My wife and I have a shared New Year's intention that is top of our list—we are now naturally sweetened! We'll be eating fruit for sure, but no refined sugars, candies, sweets, sodas, and products containing these items or the ubiquitous high fructose corn syrup.

Now if, inside of my consciousness, things were running as a democracy, the choice would be clear—sugar is in, we like, don't go rocking the status quo. On those tough days especially, it really helps, right? Rounds off the harsh edges. Sure.

However, for a while now, there has been a place inside of me, that I like to lovingly refer to as my inner anarchist, who has been wanting to shake things up. When I have woken up in the mornings feeling fuzzy-headed, he's been pissed. When I have felt the sugar slump after too much dessert (for whatever "special reason" the majority has seen fit to permit me to eat it!), he's been frustrated.

He's been a lone voice, and certainly not the loudest one. Each time he has raised his voice, the clamoring majority has been shouting him down. One of the qualities, however, that I have admired in anarchists over the years (and I refer to the variety of anarchists who are thoughtful, educated, action-oriented rather than the variety who think anarchy is simply about checking out, doing as many drugs as possible, and collecting dogs on the end of pieces of string) is their persistence.

My inner anarchist is persistent for sure. He doesn't care that the majority position (or, perhaps, ego position) inside me is comfortable being dulled with sugar. He recognizes that there is no inherent authority in numbers alone. That's the trouble with numbers—in so many areas in life, we seem to inherently accept that the group with the greatest number, the idea with the most votes, the person with the most toys, wins.

Just because more people think an idea is a good one, makes it no more valid, viable, or sensible to adopt. Similarly, the fact that a comfortable majority—with "comfortable" being the key word here—in your consciousness may have adopted a certain way of being in the world, does not necessarily in and of itself mean that that way of being serves you best.

So today, I encourage you to run with your inner anarchist! Listen inside as you run for a lone voice among the others that is proposing radical change. You may have an image of the stereotypical anarchist in your mind, a cartoon character from the 1800s, crouched with a big, round, sizzling bomb, poised to throw it. That's fine—just adjust slightly.

What if what your inner anarchist is poised to throw into the middle of your comfortable majority a greater level of Integrity, Self-Trust, Loving, Compassion, Joy, or Fulfillment? Listen to what s/he has to say about ways in which you can be and do in the world that will give you more of the life you want. You are not committing to doing what is suggested at this stage, but you might be surprised—and inspired—by what you hear.

"Jesus," as one of the bands in my days back in Brighton, England, Lenna & the Snakemen, would sing—"was a revolutionary."