What are some guidelines that would help one achieve individuality Essay

What are some guidelines that would help one achieve individuality - Essay Example Different people require different environment to develop and there is no single life pattern suitable for everyone (Ten, 1980). On individuality, John Stuart Mill recommends that people should not follow the custom just because it is the norm. Conforming would only compare human beings to apes and sheep, which rely on faculty of imitation (Mill, Anderson & Anderson, 2003). Instead, Mill wants people to choose their course of life more reflectively basing their decisions on their own experiences. Attaining individuality is dependent of reflection and deliberation. This involves use of distinctive human faculties including judgment, perception, mental activity, discriminative feeling and moral preference (Mill, Anderson & Anderson, 2003). Since individual natures are not transparent, people experience living, deliberate and reflect on these experiences and derive lessons from them. Following the lessons, an individual should then make right inferences regarding what is more suitable for them (Mill, Anderson & Anderson, 2003). In light of Mills’ advocacy for developing individuality, Vincent Ruggiero (2008) gives four steps that act as guidelines to assist in achieving individuality. The first step according to Ruggiero (2008) is treating an individual’s first reaction to another person, situation or issue with suspicion (Ruggiero, 2008). A person should not at first embrace that feeling or reaction without examining the reason as to why they reacted in such a manner. People, issue or situations bring out feeling of joy, shock, disappointment or hurt. It is important that a person, before internalizing these feeling, understands why they occurred in the first place. The second step involves deciding why they reacted as they did during the encounter. At this stage, if possible an individual should determine what specific