Separate Yourself From The Crowd Quotes

KEYS TO WARFARE The world is full of people looking for a secret formula for success and power. They do not want to think on their own; they just want a recipe to follow. They are attracted to the idea of strategy for that very reason. In their minds strategy is a series of steps to be followed toward a goal. They want these steps spelled out for them by an expert or a guru. Believing in the power of imitation, they want to know exactly what some great person has done before. Their maneuvers in life are as mechanical as their thinking. To separate yourself from such a crowd, you need to get rid of a common misconception: the essence of strategy is not to carry out a brilliant plan that proceeds in steps; it is to put yourself in situations where you have more options than the enemy does. Instead of grasping at Option A as the single right answer, true strategy is positioning yourself to be able to do A, B, or C depending on the circumstances. That is strategic depth of thinking, as opposed to formulaic thinking.

Until recently, though, there were still moments in the day when the busyness abated and life’s pace decelerated. You would find yourself alone, separated from friends and colleagues, and you would be thrown back on your own resources, your own thoughts. Such interludes could provoke feelings of loneliness and boredom. Yet they also provided opportunities to tap into ideas, perceptions, and emotions inaccessible to the social self.

Adam wet his dry lips and tried to ask and failed and tried again. "Why do they have to do it?" he said. "Why is it?" Cyrus was deeply moved and he spoke as he had never spoken before. "I don't know," he said. "I've studied and maybe learned how things are, but I"m not even close to why they are. And you must not expect to find that people understand what they do. So many things are done instinctively, the way a bee makes honey or a fox dips his paws into a stream to fool dogs. A fox can't say why he does it, and what bee remembers winter or expects it to come again? When I knew you had to go I thought to leave the future open so you could dig out your own findings, and then it seemed better if I could protect you with the little I know. You'll go in soon now--you've come to the age." "I don't want to," said Adam quickly. "You'll go in soon," his father went on, not hearing. "And I want to tell you so you won't be surprised. They'll first strip off your clothes, but they'll go deeper than that. They'll shuck off any little dignity you have--you'll lose what you think of as your decent right to live and be let alone to live. They'll make you live and eat and sleep and shit close to other men. And when they dress you up again you'll not be able to tell yourself from the others. You can't even wear a scrap or pin a note on your breast to say, 'This is me--separate from the rest.'" "I don't want to do it," said Adam. "After a while," said Cyrus, "you'll think no thought the others do not think. You'll know no word the others can't say. And you'll do things because the others do them. You'll feel the danger in any difference whatever-- a danger to the whole crowd of like-thinking, like-acting men." "What if I don't?" Adam demanded. "Yes," said Cyrus, "sometimes that happens. Once in a while there is a man who won't do what is demanded of him, and do you know what happens? The whole machine devotes itself coldly to the destruction of his difference. They'll beat your spirit and your nerves, your body and your mind, with iron rods until the dangerous difference goes out of you. And if you can't finally give in, they'll vomit you up and leave you stinking outside--neither part of themselves nor yet free. It's better to fall in with them. They only do it to protect themselves [...]

It is not hard to follow the 'WAY'..It is actually quite easy.. The difficult part is being yourself and doing your own thing.. Separating self from the blind masses & ignoring crowd criticism.. Go ahead to do what's right for you and let nothing at all stop you.. Let no judgment bother & allow no one to decide who you are,Never

Risk isn’t about going headlong into situations where the outcome can’t be predicted. That’s just foolish behaviour. Risk means pushing the envelope when others want to take the safe route. Risk means caring more about potential rewards than possible losses. To separate yourself from the crowd, think through the worst-case scenarios as possibilities. If a worst-case scenario does become a reality, be just as willing to move on to bigger and better things.

The car slows down, interrupting his thoughts. "Here we are," says Ian, sitting up straight. He puts on his hat and takes a deep breath. "Let the show begin." He opens the door and camera flashes dazzle him. Adoring voices call him and a crowd circles him. "Come on, little Key." Maicol turns and smiles. "Excited girls can’t wait to tear you to pieces." He imitates a lion’s roar. Then he gets out and more flashes of light fly into the car. Andrea grasps the door handle, trying to keep his internal disorder under control. His skin sizzles as if on a grill and his heart is bursting through his rib cage. His hand trembles so much that he can’t even lower the simple lever. One door separates him from the new world that he’s about to enter. And he wonders why he's doing it. For the money? Because Susanna is enthusiastic? To glorify himself and his pride? Out of curiosity? He’s afraid of changing and perhaps Ian is right. The only thing is to be yourself, but put up barriers. He had been Andrea, as always, that afternoon in Clusone, but had placed Key in front as a layer to protect his true essence. His true self. Andrea thinks back to the image of his reflection. He focuses, wraps himself in it, and feels that he can control the turmoil. His breathing is regular. Calm now, he lowers the handle. He places a foot on the ground and steps out, as relaxed as if among friends. He’s bombarded by camera flashes and questions that fly at him wildly, but smiles as soon as Ian and Maicol stand by his side. "Good evening everyone. I’m Key," he says confidently. And time stops in a glow of solomonic certainty: now he knows who it was on stage with Nicolle.

This is the achievement that Jung described as “individuation”—the ability to appreciate yourself as a creature separate from your species. As Jung has it: “a being distinct from the general, collective psychology”31 will experience “an enriching of conscious psychological life;”32 being a true individual is a “coming to selfhood or ‘self-realization.’”33 In other words, solitude relieves us from a nervous hive mentality; it reminds us the self is no monster after all.

I once read that after every 7 years or so, every cell in the human body has completely regenerated and the body becomes made entirely of a different collection of physical material. At which point, nothing that was once you, is you anymore. And across 7 years, your life circumstances are likely different too, if not completely different. Meaning both your interior physical state and exterior circumstances are constantly changing completely, and yet you always feel mostly the same. At least in the sense that you still feel like you. It seems as if all processes of change in life are sifted through the same colander of self, and the only thing that is ever consistent on any level in any circumstances is that thing inside your head that continually identifies you with you, despite what’s going on around and through it. And that’s sort of ultimately what it all comes down to, I think. How well you exist with that strange, central you that observes all the other dynamics and constantly changing yous. If anything, it is this that solitude and separation provide. The value and reformative nature of confinement are, at least for me, not necessarily to develop into a different person but to properly face the strange, painful, difficult, and almost inexplicable person you might really be. The person who isn’t really a person, but the thing that lacks a complete and obvious person, but longs relentlessly for one. The truth of what you might be, that you went to great, massive efforts to otherwise avoid. And instead, you direct your efforts to learn how to live with this, rather than always lashing and flailing away from it. That’s where the real trouble came from for me anyway. Eventually, your strategy is to flail violently against yourself, in an effort to overtake it, you’ll end up going to the end of the world, losing everything you have and love just to ultimately end up being put here, to confront the same fact that you knew all along, that you always go with you. Arguably, some level of solitude is inevitable, in any life. But perhaps, some level of deeper, intentional solitude is necessary for a good one. At least for a period of time. Even in a crowd of thousands of people, every person is ultimately alone inside their head, as a solitary receiver of everything. Everything and everyone is experienced individually, skull by skull, moment by moment, once, for all eternity. And so, what does it mean to be a solitary receiver of a world of noise, if when the noise is turned down, you can barely stand it? Perhaps some decent amount of solitude grants you the first step in confronting just how broken the receiver inherently is, finally letting you hear the static buzz that’s been humming in the background of everything, that you can only notice when nearly everything else turns down. Sometimes this humming drove me crazy, sometimes to the brink of all hopelessness, but then like everything else, you begin to adapt. I think it probably takes a full lifetime to ever know what you really are and what good anything was for you. Eventually, everyone figures out how to be ok. Eventually, you don’t have a choice.

Separate yourself from the complaining crowd. You can create your own luck. 'Luck is when opportunity meets preparedness'... well, I agree.