The reasonable man takes the sure road in life. He understands the way the world works and clicks off the boxes he needs to in order to succeed in life.
The reasonable woman defends the status quo knowing that someday, someone will defend her when it’s her turn.
The reasonable man acknowledges that things need to change in the world. And he feels good about the fact that he sees it. He may even be so bold as to share a controversial meme on Facebook, just so people know he is serious.
The reasonable woman looks at her childhood dreams of changing the world as fanciful and unrealistic. “It’s time to be a grown up,” she says.
The reasonable man accepts the hand he has been dealt in life. Hope is not a luxury he can afford.
The reasonable woman looks at all of the problems in the world around her and becomes overwhelmed. She shuts down because it’s unreasonable to think that things could actually change.
The reasonable man finds internal peace in the approval of others. He plays by someone else’s rules in someone else’s game.
The world has convinced us that we need reasonable men. After all, reasonable men and women keep the world running smoothly. But what if they’re just perpetuating a system that is broken? What if we’ve bought into a narrative that isn’t true?
Who’s Writing The Rules Of Your Game?
There are two ways that you can succeed in life: conformity or originality. The sad fact is that most of us choose the path of least resistance. We hold tight to the status quo, afraid of the uncertainty that comes with challenging the rules of the system we live in.
But what if those rules are wrong? Who wrote them, anyway? Who says it has to be this way?
What if we are perpetuating a system built by something other than God?
Do we just keep things running smoothly…or do we begin to redefine the rules of the game?
When we become curious about who the gamesmakers really are, we’ll become dissatisfied by the current defaults our world runs on. We’ll recognize that many of the rules and systems that we’ve lived under can actually be changed. And that awareness gives the courage and the permission to begin to think about how to actually start changing things.
But originality is often an act of creative destruction. We create something new over the grave of the old and that can be frightening. If you destroy the old, what’s left? No one likes the person that rocks the boat.
But what’s the price of doing nothing? What happens if we ignore the things God is showing us?
It’s easy to push the responsibility off to someone else. We assume that people like John G. Lake, Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, Marie Curie or Martin Luther King Jr. were born with the tools to change the world. They were born to be unreasonable.
But here’s the thing, being unreasonable isn’t something you’re born with. It’s not a spiritual gift.
They faced the same fears and challenges that you and I do. What made them different was that they took action anyway.
Being unreasonable is a choice.
The Unreasonable Man Is Different
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. “ – George Bernard Shaw
The unreasonable man is an original. He thinks outside the box
The unreasonable woman is unconventional. She believes that she can do anything that God has called her to despite the “limitations” (insert eye roll) that she has as a woman.
The unreasonable man recognizes when the world has accepted a choice as a truth and he creates an alternative.
The unreasonable woman doesn’t settle for what is in front of her. She takes the initiative to find a better way, even when no one has asked her to.
The unreasonable man changes the game if the rules don’t work.
The unreasonable woman recognizes that success and achievement are two different things. She would rather challenge the status quo and be branded a failure, than be labeled an expert at what others have already attained.
The unreasonable man rejects the default settings in his life. He’s willing to explore the world for better options.
The unreasonable woman asks “why”… a lot. But she doesn’t stop there. She also asks, “what if?” She’s an explorer, constantly looking for creative alternatives.
Today, we need unreasonable men and women more than ever.
Please don’t be the reasonable man.