doing one's own thing

I admire both impulses, though I think what’s most important is to have an actual opinion rather than, I don’t know, blandly letting the next four years go by while doing one’s own thing inside the island of California.

Bucking the trend, flying solo, doing one’s own thing, being a maverick: each of these aphorisms demonstrates American culture’s approving attitude towards ditching the “we” in favor of the “me.”

That, of course, involves a contradiction between "doing one's own thing" and doing it with others.

As distress from terrorism or corruption grows, ordinary Italians are withdrawing into individualismo, which means ignoring the social structures and doing one's own thing, and familismo, or pulling back into family togetherness.