do one's own thing

1960s counterculture.

• "The psychological patter of the '70s is as inescapable as Muzak and just as numbing: Are you relating? Going through heavy changes? In touch with yourself and doing your own thing?"
• "This weekend, Mr. Rouse is doing his own thing: leading his own quartet with John Hicks on piano, Santi DeBriano on bass, and Ed Blackwell on drums, and playing his own compositions."
• "OK, so I want my kids to find their own way, do their own thing, become their own people."
• "If we look at Stephen Harper’s wife, she was basically a non-entity in public. She maintained real distance from political life and just kept doing her own thing."

• suit oneself