Presto’s Ramblings

How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World
Chapter 2: The Identity Traps Notes

It’s ironic that I fell into this trap while writing about it. In Chapter 2 of Harry’s book he discussed what he calls “Identity Traps.” To quote Mr. Browne:

There are two Identity Traps: (1) the belief that you should be someone other than yourself; and (2) the assumption that others will do things in the way that you would.

These are the basic traps, of which many others are variations. In the first trap, you necessarily forfeit our freedom by requiring yourself to live in a stereotyped, predetermined way that doesn’t consider your own desires, feeling, and objectives.

The second trap is more subtle but just as harmful to your freedom. When you expect someone to have the same ideas, attitudes, and feelings that you have, you expect him to act in ways that aren’t in keeping with his nature. As a result,you’ll expect and hope that people will do things that they’re not capable of doing.

I fell into this trap by trying to write this post in the manner that someone else would have written it. Joey at The Freedom Symposium said that he had an idea similar to mine where he would have written “Cliff’s Notes” to various pro-freedom books. That idea stuck in my head, and over and over I tried to write the “Cliff’s Notes” version of this chapter. After several frustrating and unsuccessful attempts, I realized that I was betraying the original intention that I had for these book notes. I never intended to write a condensed version of the books that I read.

What I wanted to do was write about my experiences and thoughts regarding the subject of the chapter. While I would love to see someone write a condensed and understandable version of various pro-freedom books, especially some of the more difficult-to-understand economics texts, that is not my purpose here and therefore I will not do that at this time. Maybe Joey will decide to take up that task. If so, I wish him all of the luck in the world.

These identity traps have been a real bugaboo for me in both my personal and work lives. For example, I have spent much of my adult life working in certain fields to make other people happy rather than myself. I went into the electronics field not because of the modest interest that I had, but because I thought that I could make a fair amount of money at it and that would make certain members of my family proud. Always a bad idea, and I paid the price in stress and unhappiness.

One of the biggest aspects of this trap is that when in school, we are constantly told to look for a particular preprepared pigeon hole to place ourselves in. The problem is, some of us (perhaps most of us) don’t fit into a particular hole. We are all unique individuals after all, and each need to make our own unique place in life. In the above-mentioned field, I was miserable most of the time. Not because the work itself was bad, but because of two things. 1. I hate corporate politics with a passion, and 2. I have many other interests and need to have personal fulfillment as well as work fulfillment. I’ve learned that I need to create my own place for myself, no matter what other people think. That’s what I am trying to do now.

We fall into these traps all of the time. There is an entire industry out there dedicated to telling us how to live our lives: How to eat, how to work, how to organize our time, all in prepackaged “systems.” Many of these people have excellent ideas that can help us to create better lives for ourselves. The problem arises when we try to follow those ideas completely without regard to our own idiosyncrasies and unique situations. Sunni Maravillosa calls it “Someone Else’s System Syndrome.” An excellent name for it. Sunni has some excellent thoughts on the subject. I highly recommend that you read the latest post on her blog.

What I think that we need to do is to take the ideas that others have and adapt them for own lives. We need to take the best of others’ ideas and make them our own. Only then can we use them to best effect. No one, no matter how brilliant or educated, has all of the answers for us.

The second trap outlines a similar problem. It is the assumption that other people are just like me and will act and feel the same way I do. I have fallen into this trap often, in both friendships and romantic relationships. We are all different. We all have different values, expectations and desires. When we expect anyone else to feel or act the same way we do, we are asking for trouble. We must appreciate the other people in our lives for who they really are, not how we might want or expect them to be.

Harry Browne writes a great deal more in this chapter, and if you get hold of a copy of this book, I highly recommend that you read it if you get caught in this trap. It’s especially important if you get caught in it as often as I do. But I must move on, or I will get caught in the trap of excessive Rambling.