Charlie Chaplin was an incredibly eloquent speaker. If you ever watch the The Great Dictator speech, it’s impossible to deny. It’s passionate. It’s articulate. It’s fearless. What many people don’t realise is that Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, and starred in that film himself. He could speak beautifully. And yet. What made him one of the first true global superstars was not his voice. It was his understanding of silence. Chaplin realised something most people still haven’t: You can make far more noise by being silent. At a time when language divided people, silence unified them. No translation needed. No explanation required. His silence created: • Curiosity • Attention • Emotional connection People leaned in. They filled the gaps themselves. And in doing so, they became part of the story. In a world now obsessed with shouting louder, posting more, and filling every gap with noise, Chaplin’s lesson still stands. Silence isn’t weakness. It’s discipline. And when used well, it’s one of the most powerful tools you have to attract attention rather than chase it.

Are You a Deviant? The word deviant gets used like an insult. As if deviation means wrong. Bad. Broken. It doesn’t. It simply means you didn’t follow the norm. And let’s be honest. Why would you want to? Normal is average. Average is the bottom of the top. The top of the bottom. The cream of the crap. Normal means doing what most people do. Thinking what most people think. Living how most people live. ...And most people live lives of quiet desperation. Same routines. Same conversations. Same complaints. Different faces. The well trodden path is popular for a reason. It feels safe. Predictable. Socially acceptable. But it rarely leads anywhere extraordinary. Every breakthrough. Every innovation. Every fulfilled life. Came from someone willing to deviate. Someone who was labelled difficult. Different. Too much. Unconventional. Not because they were wrong. But because they didn’t fit. Deviating doesn’t make you a deviant. It makes you conscious. It means you questioned the default. You chose curiosity over comfort. You took the road less travelled. And yes, it’s harder. Lonelier. Less applauded. But the rewards are bigger. Freedom. Fulfilment. Ownership of your own life. So if you deviate, good. You’re probably on the right path. The masses can keep the norm. I’ll take the view from the road they were too afraid to walk.

Most people are not trapped. They are contained. Same routines. Same conversations. Same assumptions. Same view, every single day. And because the water feels familiar, they call it safe. Because the glass is invisible, they call it freedom. The problem is not that people lack opportunity. The problem is that they stop questioning the edges of their world. Like a fish in a bowl, you can live a full life swimming in circles and never once ask whether the bowl is the world, or just the container you were placed in. Nothing changes inside the bowl. Only the view does. And the view only changes when the bowl moves. That is why growth feels uncomfortable. It is not the effort. It is the disorientation. New angles. New light. New questions. The mind resists this because certainty feels like security, even when it is quietly suffocating you. Most people are not afraid of failure. They are afraid of discovering that the life they built was smaller than it needed to be. The moment you question the bowl, the spell breaks. You start to see that many of the limits you accepted were never walls, just habits you stopped noticing. The remembering is not about becoming someone new. It is about seeing more clearly. Same fish. Same water. Different view. And once you see that the bowl can move, you can never unsee it. That is when real freedom begins.

Most people are searching outside of themselves for everything.Medicine. Goals. Inspiration. Motivation. Education. Confidence. Permission. We have been trained to believe the answer is always 'out there'. Another book. Another course. Another expert. Another hack. And yes, learning matters. Support matters. Mentoring matters. But there is a big difference between learning to expand, and learning because you do not trust yourself to decide. Here is the truth most people avoid. You were born with more wiring than you give yourself credit for. Instinct. Intuition. Pattern recognition. Resilience. A built in compass that knows when something is off, and knows when something is aligned. Look at nature: Sea turtles are buried under sand by a mother they will never meet again. No tutorial. No hand holding. No motivational podcast. Yet when the time comes, they know to dig up. They know to head straight for the sea. They know to swim. They know to survive. Then years later, they return to the same beach to do it again. Call it instinct. Call it design. Call it nature. But it proves something important. The direction was already in them. Humans are no different. You do not need to outsource every decision. You do not need to wait for the perfect strategy before you start. You do not need to collect information until you feel safe. You need to choose a direction. Then get the right input. Not the other way round. Because if you keep expecting life to be delivered to you from the outside, you will spend your entire life consuming and never creating. So here is a simple rule for 2026. Go inward first. Decide who you want to be. Decide what you want. Decide what matters. Then get advice to support the path you have chosen, not to replace your responsibility to choose it. Stop searching for a saviour. Start trusting your compass. You have more in you than you have been taught to believe.

At first glance, it sounds harmless. Reasonable, even. But listen closely to showing what it really asks of you. Conform means to shape yourself to fit. Not to discover who you are. Not to create. Not to question. To fit. The word comes from the idea of being pressed into a mould. Smoothed. Aligned. Standardised. Conformity does not ask, “What do you think?” It asks, “Will you comply?” It rewards agreement over awareness. Obedience over originality. Acceptance over truth. The moment you conform, thinking is outsourced. Creativity is muted. Responsibility quietly disappears. You stop asking whether something is right, meaningful, or alive. You only ask whether it will be approved. Conformity is comfortable. That is its greatest danger. It keeps you safe, but small. Included, but interchangeable. Busy, but not fulfilled. Every system that depends on control loves conformity. Every system that depends on progress quietly fears those who refuse it. Nothing new has ever come from fitting in. No breakthrough. No truth. No real freedom. Growth begins the moment you feel the pressure to conform and choose awareness instead. Not rebellion. Not noise. Just the courage to think, create, and stand where you are, without shrinking to belong. Conformity asks you to disappear politely. Life asks you to show up fully. Choose carefully.