The Man MakesThe crowded road and the right road are not often the same road.
A sovereign man does not follow the paved road just because it is paved. He checks the map himself. Sometimes the path with no footprints on it is the only one worth walking.
The crowd's road offers company, and company is a real comfort. But it usually delivers everyone to the same destination they all later complain about — the job that hollowed them out, the life that looks right and feels wrong. The man on his own path is lonely earlier and freer later. He is not contrary for its own sake. He has simply done the arithmetic and noticed that "everyone does it" has never once been a reason for anything.
The Stoic source
Seneca, On the Happy Life 1Now nothing gets us into greater troubles than our subservience to common rumour, and our habit of thinking that those things are best which are most generally received as such, of taking many counterfeits for truly good things, and of living not by reason but by imitation of others.
Translated by Aubrey Stewart
The Scripture
Matthew 7:13-14, KJVEnter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
The move
Opt out of one thing everyone around you does without questioning. Sit with the discomfort of standing alone. Notice it does not kill you.