Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved flying. When he went out of his way to learn these skills, the flock declared him an outcast. Over a span of many years, Jonathan never stopped teaching himself more about flying. Along with other outcast gulls, he developed different techniques and started teaching them to other seagulls.
This book is an allegory, it captures what we can see in our society today. When a person tries to do something out of the box, people criticize them without giving it a second thought and declare them as an outcast.
This story is also about the quest for perfection for an individual. It shows how Jonathan is determined to make a better version of himself, not to show it off.
In the past, I have experienced a lot of criticism when I tried to do things my way. I did not understand what I was being criticized for. After reading this book, I realize that the criticism is the flock mindset— I wasn’t doing things the way they wanted. This is very freeing. Now, my approach is to differentiate between true feedback and false criticism and to act on the former and ignore the latter.