What I never want to do is make someone else feel stupid or strange for doing something he or she is naturally inclined to do. Don’t you hate it when you’re just going about your business, sharing an idea or giving your opinion, and you receive a blank stare, someone laughs or vehemently disagrees, and, instead of being kind and polite about it, the person you’re conversing with leaves you feeling idiotic and a little bit ashamed you even opened your mouth in the first place?
There’s no real need for that at all. People are going to disagree, and people are going to do things other people look at and say, “Hm. That’s different,” and it doesn’t make one person wrong or right. That’s why there are different strokes for different folks. That’s why we should live and let live.
I think “live and let live” is a great piece of advice; however, it only goes so far. If someone is doing harm to him or herself or someone else, then you should probably step in and do something about it. But letting other people live, accepting other people’s peculiarities without making them feel peculiar, well, I think that’s something we all should do.
Not that anyone must give someone else permission to function, but giving people the license to be themselves — allowing people to feel comfortable doing and saying that which comes natural to them — is one of the greatest favors you can do for anyone, including yourself.
If you’d like to dance so hard that the next morning it feels like someone with rings on punched you all over, do it. If you want to go grocery shopping in your jammies, well, why not? Once you start asking yourself, “Why not?” you open up a cosmos of things you never do, things you’d like to do, but just don’t. Give yourself the license to do and say what you think and feel. Give others that same license.
Jim Morrison said, “A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself … That’s what real love amounts to, letting a person be what he really is.” I don’t think this sort of love should only be practiced in romantic relationships and friendships. Be a friend to everyone by allowing everyone to be him or herself, with no backlash or judgment. Be your own friend by allowing yourself to do the same. If you’re not hurting yourself or someone else, be it physically or emotionally, then go for it. Anything you’d like to say or do that isn’t wrong is right.