do one’s own thing, to

To find self-expression or self-fulfillment in some activity. Although this term is very old indeed—numerous references can be found in Chaucer, as in The Merchant’s Tale (“where as they doon hir thynges”)—it became hackneyed during the 1960s. Rebelling against the establishment, the unconventional “dropped out” of society and joined com- munes where they would “do their own thing.” One might wonder how many of them were familiar with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, Self-Reliance (1841), in which he said, “I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are.... But do your own thing and I shall know you.”