personal principles

Recently someone convinced me to throw away a singular personal principle that I thought was very important. It turns out it wasn't important all - at the time. Oh look, it still isn't. Was it ever?

Some pretty amazing things can happen when you let go of the boundaries you have set for yourself. You may not even be aware that you've fenced yourself in so tightly that it is your own thrice damned fault that you cannot escape from a self imposed prison made up of non sense. And that once you start to pull out the fence posts your world does NOT fall apart but opens up into the grand vistas of possibility that you used to thrive in.

What made me build that particular fence? External pressure. From friends, from society in general, from the media, from the family, the parents, the mores that were pounded into me as I grew up.

Does that make it right?

No. No it does not.

A personal principle is by definition personal. It should be made based upon how YOU perceive a situation/event/behaviour. Certainly you take into account the perceptions of others in the process of forming them, but when it comes right down to it, you are the one who will live by it, be affected by it, and will have to deal with the consequences on your future choices by that principle which you choose.

Be careful.

One little principle can cause immeasurable harm to yourself if it is not chosen for the right reasons. And if you make a mistake, and are not lucky enough to escape from it later, you just may fuck yourself for good. And not in a good way.

I escaped. Thank the hundred little gods.