The "law" is an ass

I'm a massive fan of personal development. I embrace the growth vibe that it encompasses. At the same time, I'm fully cognizant of the importance of self-acceptance. Accept who you are, warts and all.

On the surface, there's a conflict. Try to be more than who you currently are but accept that there's absolutely nothing wrong with you. Actually, I see this as a healthy tension. If you focus only on the personal growth angle of more, more, more then you'll never be happy. If you get fully lost in only accepting your lot and the world around you, you miss the opportunity to lift yourself out of hardships.

Combining the two means that you accept the core of who you are, while realizing there's so much more to you than you're revealing. To me, that's a healthy place to be. Try to have a better understanding of the bigger picture rather than just a silo.

As I keep thinking throughout these blog posts, we live in a world of stories and n ot "the truth". Malcolm Gladwell tells a story. Freakonomics tells a story. The Undercover Economist tells a story. They could all be explaining the cause of the exact same situation but with different conclusions. We live through stories and liberal explanations, even more so when social sciences shape our understanding.

Commentators keep using the term "laws" to explain how some things work in our existence, as if they are irrefutable mechanisms within the universe. When such laws are based on physics, maybe there's some proper scientific underpinning. It can be tested. There's some rigor. 

But when you apply "laws" to something which should be loosely termed "rules", you do diminish it. The Law of Gravity has more depth than the Law of Attraction. Don't get me wrong, I'm into the Law of Attraction. I've read The Secret and seen the movie, and I try to live the principle. And I definitely see the value. But do I, hand on heart, believe that it works in equal measure for the 7.9 billion people around the world? No. Do I think the Law of Gravity applies evenly? Well, yes.

We can't take everything at face value. Keep observing. Keep growing a bigger picture. Challenge your thinking. Be curious. That's what I want to do.