Who Gets Authority?

“Revolution! Revolution!”

She sat at the desk behind me singing along with the lyrics to Arrested Development’s Revolution as it played in the background on our homeroom’s daily Channel One announcement.

I had never heard of the song.

The closest thing to “cool” music I knew about was the tape of the Right Said Fred single I’m Too Sexy that I had proudly stashed in my backpack.

But there Amy was, tapping her 14-hole black Doc Martens along to the beat and singing every word.

Amy wasn’t cool in the “head cheerleader with amazing hair and her Daddy’s money” kind of way that was typical of that massive Texas high school that worshipped football and burly pick-up trucks.

She wore holey fishnets and combat boots and occasionally purple hair if she was in the mood.

She spoke three languages, was salutatorian of our class, and was a classically trained ballerina.

She was kind. She was friendly.

She did not give a fuuuuuuuck.

Which was perhaps her most unique trait in those halls : she was clearly and completely comfortable in her own skin and with her own voice.

Once, I caught the tail end of a conversation she was having with another classmate.

I heard the other student ask in a hushed and appalled voice, “But what will people say?”

To which Amy cooly responded, “What people?”

Wideyed, her friend whispered, “Everyone.”

Amy shrugged nonchalantly and answered, “I don’t know ‘everyone’ so why would I care what they say?”

Then she opened her notebook and began doodling.

Talk about revolution.

She had just made my 15-year-old eavesdropping head explode.

I like to think I’ve learned a thing or two in the *cough cough* 20+ years since high school.

But that is a lesson I have to continually remind myself.

To whose opinions do we give the weight of authority? By what criteria do we measure?

Why do we so often default to the misbelief that the entire world somehow got a memo we missed and knows better than we do?

How often have we followed a structure or set of rules or measured ourselves by standards set by an “everyone” we’ve never met?

I don’t know about you, but my answer to that question is a clear and reverberating “waaaaaay too damn often.”

I recently had a chapter of the novel I’ve been working on for the last year get torn to shreds in a writing workshop I’m in.

I’m pretty thick-skinned generally, but this was tough.

I will admit that I struggled not to cry through the almost 45 minutes of having something raw and naked that I’d created get eviscerated.

I just nodded and blinked and swallowed hard and said “thank you for your feedback” a lot.

And then I questioned the value of the entire 150,000+ words I’d poured into the project over the course of more than a year.

Here’s why I’m telling you this...

It took me almost 36 hours of excruciating self-doubt to finally get around to the 2 questions that might have saved me from the start:

(1) Upon what authority do these opinions rest?

(2) When I step back, do those opinions feel true when weighed against my own judgment?

Often there is great value in hearing and considering the experiences, thoughts, and perspectives of other people.

It can help us see past our own biases and blind spots.

But it is imperative that we also step back, get still, and ultimately trust ourselves.

That workshop is made up of folks who are all writing their own very first novels.

They are not editors at a publishing house nor literary agents with 20 years of experience.

They are a well-meaning group of strangers who were hearing a single chapter out of a first-draft of a story they’d never heard.

So why would I default to the assumption that their wildly varied opinions were more valuable and true than my faith in what I was bringing forth in this work?

Look.

Balancing staying open to the thoughts and perspectives of others and staying true to what we know instinctively to be right for ourselves can be tricky business.

But it’s worth cultivating the practice of questioning our defaults.

It’s worth using our curiosity to begin unearthing how we have absorbed some of those opinions or structures or standards or stories as our defaults without question.

To start asking:

“By what authority?”

“Is that still true for me?”

“Who said it has to be that way?”

“Who is the ’they’ or the ‘everyone’ I’m so afraid of offending or disappointing or defying?”

“When and why did I decide this was true?"

This is at the heart of what we’ll be doing in the Say The Word retreat on March 13:

Beliefs & Misbeliefs: Inspecting Our Foundations

March 13, 2021

11am-3pm EST

$97



You don’t need fishnets and Docs and purple hair to question the authority of the masses.

Having some faith in your own inner voice, taking the time and space to listen to what that voice has to say, is a revolutionary act.

When rooted in openness and curiosity, it can allow you to hear the voices of others without having your own drowned out.

I hope you'll carve out 4 quiet hours for yourself to practice this with us in March.

But even if you can’t, look for opportunities in your day to day to ask questions of your beliefs and assumptions and pause long enough to begin hearing your answers.