MYTH: Marching to the Beat of Your Own Drum

Last year I took a personal development course that had a profound effect on me in many ways. One of the exercises we did had a small but specific take away I’d like to share with you now. 

For context, me and about twenty-five of my classmates were taught a series of Gurdjieff movements that formed a ritualistic-type of dance. Imagine nearly thirty men and women in lines performing specific choreography of increasing complexity to the rhythm set by the instructor.

To give you an idea of what it felt like to perform the dance, I’d describe it as a physical puzzle or memory game. It took considerable effort to stay on task, on time, and in order. 

That said, the reason for these Gurdjieff movements includes but is not limited to self-study and self-observation. I can tell you without a shadow a doubt that the awareness of all participants was brought to the moment. You absolutely could not possibly be anywhere but in your body while participating in the dance. 

After the experience, our instructor made an observation that struck me. He asked, “Once you all began to get the rhythm and you settled into the flow, did you notice how you could begin to put your unique style in the movement? If you felt that, did you feel like you could make it your own?”

I couldn’t have agreed more.

There was this weird feeling where once I settled into the choreography enough such that I wouldn’t make a mistake, I became myself and could express my own unique style. You could put a little spice into it, if you will. 

“Contrast that feeling with this,” my instructor said. “Notice what we do when you’re put on the spot and someone says ‘Freestyle! Go! Dance however you want!’ Do we do something original or unique? No. You do the ‘Running Man’ or the ‘Funky-Chicken’ or some other move that we’ve all seen a million times.”

His lesson hit us all like a ton of bricks.

With structure and discipline (of the choreography) we have room to express our unique style freely, but when we have no frame of reference or guardrails we devolve into what we know.

Too much freedom and all of the sudden we’re unoriginal.

If you want to be a revolutionary or unique contributor in the world, it likely will best be fostered with discipline and structure rather than anarchy.