"emancipate yourself from mental slavery. none but ourselves can free our minds." that's great and all, bob, but exactly how are we mentally chained up? and who has the key?
my old friend the tao te jing has one answer: "if you worry about the approval of others, you make yourself their prisoner." when i first read that i thought "ouch. man, i am totally enslaved by like so many people." we all are to some extent because we learn very early on to get a sense of who we are from how others see us. but as we get older, we hopefully start to get that sense from ourselves.
psychologists refer to this as extrinsic worth vs. intrinsic worth. when you have more of the latter, you have greater security and a sense of control in your life. but if you're constantly focused on others' opinions, then your worth is in their hands.
this is not to say that it's not important to care what your friends and family think about you, because their eyes can often be a guiding force in your life. it just means that we need to make sure that the majority of our self worth comes from within, rather than without. otherwise we be jammin' ourselves up wit dat mental slavery crap.
and 'dats one to grow on, mon.
