A while back my late husband, James, introduced me to this interesting saying; (forgive me I’m paraphrasing a bit) 'It is the unreasonable man that changes the world’. I think it’s attributed to George Bernard Shaw although Google’s let me down a bit for once! It has been my favourite quote ever since.
My interpretation of it is that it's the man or woman who has the ability to think outside the box, and not conform to what society expects of them who has the power to have the greatest influence in the world. The corollary is Albert Einstein's saying which is, 'the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result.' And if one of the greatest minds of our time thinks that 'being reasonable' is not the way to go then why the hell should we?
Of course the quote is intended for those luminaries that change the world paradigm. People like Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, Edison, Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, Lady Diana, Marie Curie, Marx, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Kingdom-Brunel, The Wright brothers etc etc. However I like to try to apply it in my own small way to my own life.
Now I am not advocating anarchy here, but what I am questioning is why is it we often continue to do what we've always done and wonder why we're no closer to where we want to be? We put up with jobs and careers that engender mild depression, we moan about our finances but we're not prepared to do what 10% of the population who own 90% of the wealth are prepared to do, we yearn for physical perfection but we can't be arsed to get off the couch or lay off the cakes, we complain about not having enough time but yet we could give anyone who wants to know a list of all the contestants who have ever been on X-factor, and we spoil our children with iPads, Wiis, PS4s and X-Boxes and wonder why they have no sense of value and Christmas has become a financial minefield.
Don’t worry I am no saint in all this; in a lot of these cases I am guilty as charged. But where I am unreasonable is that I am prepared to try to adopt the habits of exceptional people (so that I can retire early!), also I try to play tennis as often as possible to help me keep fit because I hate the gym, and I can’t bring myself to watch X-factor, The Voice, Big Brother, I'm a celebrity get me out of here or the Brit awards because they seem brain dead and they won't help me get to where I plan to go. As a professional singer myself and someone who grew up listening to phenomenal superstars like Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson, and having had the pleasure of working with many talented British singers, I can’t allow these shows to insult my intelligence and try and convince me that the talent they provide is the best that the UK has to offer....sorry but I ain't buying it!)
Being ‘unreasonable’ has sometimes served me well, as I refuse to take at face value people (who should know better) who try to tell me what I can and cannot achieve. My GCSE English teacher Mrs Morrison (yes I think she should be named and shamed!) was fine until she learned that I wanted to study medicine for my career. From that point on she made it her mission to ensure that I never got anywhere near a medical university. Think about it, if you don't have English qualifications and you live in the UK then you can forget about pursuing any ‘serious’ careers. Also she killed any desire I had for creative writing even though I loved it. It's only years later that I have re-discovered my passion for it again in my blogs and book writing. My A-level Music teacher told my Mother that I would never amount to anything more than a secretary, but I came into class that morning when all the other protégés were enlightening everyone else with their future music colleges and universities, and I floored everyone particularly him, by telling them that I had just earned an unconditional offer to one of the most prestigious music colleges in the world, the Royal Academy of Music. Me the Black girl from Reading, Berkshire with a working class background. That moment was priceless!
I also failed to land the leading role as Whitney Houston in the West End, even though IMHO, I look and sound more like Whitney Houston than most people I know, but I then got chosen from 6500 girls to portray her in the 2014 Channel 5 Documentary, Autopsy: Whitney Houston's last hours so now I have the audacity to desire to play her in the movie about her life, but why not? Someone has to so why not me? Many people - including people who knew her personally - believe that I look and act a lot like her; so now I want the world to recognise that I can also sing like her as well. If that’s unreasonable, then good! Click here to see it.
One of my most significant role models is a lady who is totally unreasonable. She seems to have overcome almost every single obstacle to become one of the most successful and influential women ever and that is Oprah Winfrey. She was told that big, black, not particularly attractive women with funny names have no future in the reporting or journalistic worlds, so she bought her own production company and the rest as they say is history. If Oprah had listened to those naysayers she wouldn't have become the media powerhouse that she is today. And there are so many other people who follow a similar pattern. People who refuse to conform to what society expects of them. I imagine that everyone who has ever achieved anything significant in life has had to be unreasonable at some point!
I encourage my son to think outside the box and work things out for himself. I hope it pays off one day. If your life isn’t going the way you want it to go then maybe you’re not being unreasonable enough. Don’t you think it’s time you gave it a try?
