[princessmarisa]

This is what happens when people want to translate native phrases into another language.
I'd take a guess at the reason it will be so hard to get one just right for this is that doing things your own way is not a very Japanese idea traditionally.

The nail that sticks out and all that...

Terrible as stereotypes are they have a route somewhere and it can be very obvious when trying to translate languages into others.

If you are getting the Kanji out of love for the culture, maybe get something that represents what Japanese culture is about instead? Then it should be easy to get the right meaning across.