In our families, friend groups, organizations, and culture at large, we often find ourselves operating under unspoken rules and rituals without ever considering their impact on us. Here, Dan Cumberland (MACS 鈥�12) invites us to consider the impact of these rules and wonder about what it might mean to live in a new way. Dan is the founder of the , where he leads people in finding deeper passion and purpose in their life and work, and .

鈥淲e see you as an artist,鈥� he said. His hair was long, thick, and wavy. His face thin and defined. His gaze intense and gentle.

Sixteen of us sat around a big solid wooden table, eating a meal together. We were all part of 天美视频鈥檚 Artist Residency.

Somehow I ended up among them.

I didn鈥檛 think of myself as an artist. Though I studied music composition in undergrad, I always felt a bit like I was faking it鈥攅veryone else had a much greater mastery of their instruments and musical concepts.

I thought my main focus for the week of the Artist Residency was going to be writing music. It turns out it was something much deeper.

His words to me around that table were part of a shift in how I thought of myself. It may seem small from the outside, but on the inside it was big. And risky.

I didn鈥檛 spend time around artists in my younger years. My family didn鈥檛 have a category for them. None of us were artists. In fact, I don鈥檛 know that I could find a single artist in my family tree.

We鈥檇 go to art events, but there was always a sense that those people weren鈥檛 our people. They were misunderstood and called 鈥渁rtsy-fartsy.鈥�

Artists may make pretty things, but they didn鈥檛 seem to belong in our family.

It wasn鈥檛 until I was in my mid-twenties that I began to embrace the fact that I really am a creative at heart, and that making is a big part of who I am.

Every group of people has rules.

Every group has a code of conduct for how you belong to it. Whether it be a family, an organization, a cult, or a culture, and whether they are spoken or unspoken, subtle or overt, they鈥檙e there.

Just look at communities and subcultures around you and you鈥檒l quickly see them:

The rules draw a line in the sand, differentiating who is in and who is out.

To follow the code of conduct is to belong. To violate the rules means you do not belong. And the cost of not belonging is some sort of punishment:

The punishment reinforces the rules and increases the commitment of the community. They say that there is a way to belong and a way not to. There are those on the inside and those on the outside.

For much of our lives we are taught to belong鈥攖o fit in, keep our heads down, don鈥檛 stand out, don鈥檛 question the rules, don鈥檛 push the limits.

But there comes a time when limits need to be pushed. Beliefs need to be questioned. Rules need to be broken. Friends need to grow. And family needs to change.

In order to create change, you have to break rules.

While some of these rules are overt and spoken, the more insidious ones are those that are not. These are the rules that are assumed, and that we often take on without realizing it.

These are the rules that we live by without knowing it. These are the rules that keep us stuck.

For me, one of those rules had to do with being an artist. To let that be true of me was to accept that there are parts of me that my family won鈥檛 be able to understand. In fact, they may even reject those parts.

Have you thought about your rules and where they come from? Have you considered how your rules help you and how they hinder you?

If you feel stuck in some way, it鈥檚 likely a result of your desires competing with some rules you have for yourself. To get unstuck, you must put language to them and explore them.