What’s tradition got to do with it?

I recently had a discussion with some friends about Tina Turner giving up her U.S citizenship. The overwhelming thoughts and feelings of my dear friends was shock and disbelief. Many of the comments consisted of, “She must be insane.”, “Why would anyone do that?”, “What exactly made her do that?” and so on. The very idea of doing something so nontraditional and so bold, struck a cord with them. As we had this discussion, I thought this is a pure example of living a nontraditional, organically bold life! To decide to do something so out of the box and so drastic, because it speaks to you, makes you happy, brings you peace, and heals your soul, however, the world around you is thinking you are absolutely insane, is nothing but organically bold! When I think of Tina Turners life, she has always had this trait within her to live organically bold. To speak so publicly about becoming a Buddhist in a Country dominated by Christianity how bold is that. For me, she is living an organic life. A definition for Organic is without artificial chemicals. An organic life is a life without artificial decisions, influences, beliefs, or thoughts. Artificial meaning anything that is not from within yourself. To live an organic life means to make decisions based on yourself. Sure we all have outside influences and we all care about what others will think at some point in our life. This is what makes us human. The difference between an artificial life and organic life is allowing these outside influences to direct our path and decisions or to make a decision solely based on what others think. Want to know if you are living an organic life ask yourself these questions: Where did I get my current Values and Beliefs? Have these values and beliefs been tested by me, do they work for me, what do they bring to my life? Am I holding onto these values because I don’t know anything else or I am afraid to let them go? Am I where I want to be in my life? What is stopping me from being where I want to be? Am I happy and at peace? What regrets if any do I have? What stop me from doing the things I now regret? And finally if I die tomorrow will I have truly lived a fulfilled, purposeful, and happy life? Once you answer these questions open and honestly you will know if you are living an organic life. Your soul will cry out to you if it is being contaminated with artificial things. If you really listen to your voice within, it will speak to you. Once you have the answer the key is to become bold. Many folks who live organically bold are nontraditional in some form or another. They don’t conform to “society norms.” Because when you are living an organically bold life, there will be something about you that is different from the next person. We are all different, unique, and want different things. Although society tries to define happiness and put a cubicle around happiness, the truth is happiness is not concrete. Happiness looks different to people. When you are living your truths, you realize that you don’t want what everyone else has. You may realize that having a big house or fancy car isn’t really what toots your horn. Maybe happiness to you is traveling abroad, maybe happiness to you is living on a farm in little house, maybe happiness to you is taking public transportation everywhere and never paying a car note, whatever your happiness is you realize it may not look like everyone else definition of happiness. Those who have found their truth and live it, are typically people that other people look at and think, what is wrong with them or I could never. But that is just it, you may not understand the next persons truth or their definition of happiness, but the key is they are living their truths!

Other Organically Bold Individuals! Many of these people achieved great things in their lives, which is further proof that being true to who you are will propel you into the life that you were born to live!