Flow is new to most people. The reason is that friends, family, and society often put constraints on flow by stating “that’s the way it’s always been” and that you should never change. The examples are many, but include such things as staying in the same profession as your parents, buying a type of car because your friends always have, assuming you’ll never achieve a certain goal because no one like you ever has, and so on.
The reality is by following your flow you can achieve whatever you’re supposed to achieve (your flow has built in goals which you will discover over time). But more to the point, history clearly demonstrates that things never stay the same and the concept of “morality” or “the right thing to do” based on some form of tradition is misguided.
The examples are many:
• In America, tattoos were traditionally considered a low class endeavor usually associated with drunken sailors. Yet the history of the tattoo is quite the opposite, and today tattoos — like earrings for men — are acceptable at every social level.
• In the late 1970’s when I was in middle school bell-bottom jeans were all the rage. Then by the time I got to high school in the early 1980’s you were considered uncool to be wearing them. Today they are once again considered chic depending on the designer.
• Did you know that cars did not always have internal combustion engines? In the early years of the automobile, makers offered a variety of propulsion sources in addition to the traditional gasoline variety. In fact, at one point in the early 1900’s the best selling vehicles in America were steam powered! Along the same lines did you know that Rudolph Diesel intended his diesel motor to run on what today would be considered biofuel and not an oil derivative? Even Henry Ford reluctantly made his cars with internal combustion engines even though he thought them to be an inferior propulsion system.
• When instant cakes were first being introduced in the 1950’s makers like Pillsbury did extensive testing research. The homemakers interviewed considered any woman who made her family an instant cake to be a whore and lacking in morals!
• The concept of a coffee break did not exist until the 1930’s. Coffee was actually considered either an early morning or evening drink. But a coffee distributor ran a huge ad campaign that changed forever the way Americans drank coffee.
• It was considered socially improper for a man not to wear an undershirt with his regular shirt. That is, until Clark Gable took off his shirt in “It Happened One Night” to reveal he was not wearing an undershirt. Sales of t-shirts plummeted and to this day men are “free” to wear an undershirt or not.
• Social security and, in general, the concept of the government taking care of you in your old age is a relatively new concept. Prior to the FDR years, elderly Americans either relied on families to take care of them or simply lived in poverty.
• If you want to go way back in history, the idea of taking a daily bath was considered to be UNhealthy for hundreds of years.
The point is clear. Fads and trends come and go. Tradition, good or bad, really never is as set in stone as people would like you to believe. And that’s where flow comes in. Flow is constant and is what you are supposed to be. Flow ignores trends, fads, tradition, and similar blockages. By following flow you are your most successful regardless of the world around you. And, over time, you will find that the world will conform to you rather than you being forced to conform to it!