To my daughter on my fiftieth birthday.

Go placidly?  I suppose...assuming you're placid.  Go feistily, loudly; draw the world in wide brush strokes and bold colours.  Let your hair down.  Walk in bare feet.  Make them shush you.  Uh...assuming you're a little like me.

And they will try and shush you.  Shush you, manipulate you, and intimidate you into being just like them or being assessed on their terms.  Walk ye into the wall of 'how things are done around here' and stand there, awaiting our instructions.  Be careful not to lift your head above the others or we might lop it off.  Don't dance or you will fall off the edge.  Above all, don't say anything.

The work of Herbert Kelman suggests there are three types of conformity:

• Compliance is public conformity, while possibly keeping one's own private beliefs.
• Identification is conforming to someone who is liked and respected, such as a celebrity or a favorite uncle.
• Internalization is accepting the belief or behavior and conforming both publicly and privately.

We struggle with conformity as a race, because our earliest conformities force us to take care of ourselves.  Our earliest conformities can save us.  We must be hard-wired to listen and to conform.  If we were not, most of us wouldn't make it to our fifth birthday, let alone our fiftieth.  These behaviours need to be fully internalized, literally for our own good:  Look both ways before you cross the road.  Eat your vegetables.  Get some sleep.  This kind of conformity is good.  Right down to the maxim that there's safety in numbers.

And there are times when compliance is important.  Best not to hurt others, physically or psychologically.  It's probable that one should turn one's phone off at the theatre, or stand in line so that you are served when it's your turn. We need to get along and respect each other's rights and freedoms.  We must try to be fair.

So, it's all good.  Or is it?  Well, no. Sadly, this natural tendency to conform is often used to control, to manipulate, to limit who you are.  And in the next few years, your teenage years, you will experience the most pressures to conform you will ever experience in your life -- not only from society wanting you to behave (what you wear, your career choices, your moral and spiritual choices) but, also, peers wanting you to break out and have a lot of fun and, perhaps, try out a few risky behaviours.

Now, because higher reasoning is a new skill for the teenager, teenagers have trouble teasing out what's right, healthy, sane.  Teenagers sometimes engage in behaviours that they never did before and never will again. And, sadly, some start to limit themselves early.  Into wearing only pink or blue.  Into only being interested in what celebrities do.  Or into believing that they're not capable.  So, how do you know?  How do you know what's right?  And how do you know what's right for you?

Your best bet is to believe in yourself.  Listen to your own internal voice.  And, if what you want does no harm to yourself or others, do it.  It's your life.  Live it to the fullest to avoid regret.  The essense of a lot of folks' regret is over-conforming, listening too much, trying to be too 'good' and not doing the things that move them.

And if you listen to and follow your heart, I guarantee you that at one time or another you will be walking alone.  You will be the only one of your friends who likes stamp collecting or vocaloids or rock climbing, or whatever.  And I can tell you from experience that it's difficult to pause on the path and see that there's no one with you.

However, think about this:  You will, likely, be doing things that others just talk about.  That's kind of neat.  You will, likely, live longer for indulging your own idiosycrancies.  You will, likely, be happier.  Now, that's all good.

And despite being alone from time to time, you will always find folks who like your choices themselves or folks who like your individuality and love you for it.  Best ever.  So, listen to yourself, listen to that wonderful voice that urges you to do what you want, how you want; what you like, what you need, how you like and need it.

Don't let me or anyone define for you what being a woman is.  Hear me, sure.  But listen to yourself.