How much of life do we live because that is what we truly want to be doing? How many choices do we make based on our personal desires without taking into consideration other people? How many times have we become stressed about how we are viewed, thought of and spoken about?
For me, I know that I have come to base a lot of my decisions and life choices on expectations.
Whether they be my own, or the expectations of others, I find that I rarely sit back and truly examine the way my life is going and what I have achieved and what I want to achieve without thinking about the judgments of others.
This frustrates me.
I know a lot of people who claim to "not care what anyone thinks of them" and nearly everyone who I have heard utter that sentence with real conviction and who truly try to live like that, when I look at the people who are closest to them, they are often unhappy. It is impossible, in my opinion, to put yourself first all the time and do only what you want to do without hurting others. I know that some people don't care who they hurt, but I just don't understand how they can be happy if the people they supposedly love, are unhappy? It just doesn't make sense to me. In fact, if I'm really honest, I think it's selfish to "not care", even if you think it's "hard core". Get over yourself and look around you. Are you really happy?
Society is a funny thing. Majoring in Sociology at University truly taught me so much about the world, and I have become so much more observant since taking up the subject for the first time in year 11. People act in the strangest ways to try and fit in to certain moulds, myself included. I have wanted to be successful, making a decent living and "happy"". I have expected that this is what I need to work towards and that is what others have expected of me as well. And here I am, working full time, about to get married, saving money for a house and enjoying what my life has to offer. But I am doing that because it is what I have always wanted, or because that is what I have been expected to want? I can't answer that question, because the more I think about it, the more confused I become. I feel happy. Not all day, every day, but I constantly feel so lucky to live the life that I do. I watch people going about their lives, envying others (I am guilty of this too), desiring things they can't have or don't want to have to work to get. I see people who wander around trying to fight the mould that they have been pushed into their whole lives and I see people who struggle daily just to come to terms with who they feel they should be, regardless of who they actually are. And I think about my own situation and wonder where I will be in twenty years, if I will be pushing against the person that I am now to try and become someone else and then if I succeed in changing, who was I really in the first place?
Identity is not something that can be nailed down. It is something that changes constantly as we grow and learn, and we never stop learning. Walking blindly through life without asking yourself the tough questions is always a possibility, but where's the fun in that?
Who do you really think you are? And if you can tell me, how well do you know?
For me, I know that I have come to base a lot of my decisions and life choices on expectations.
Whether they be my own, or the expectations of others, I find that I rarely sit back and truly examine the way my life is going and what I have achieved and what I want to achieve without thinking about the judgments of others.
This frustrates me.
I know a lot of people who claim to "not care what anyone thinks of them" and nearly everyone who I have heard utter that sentence with real conviction and who truly try to live like that, when I look at the people who are closest to them, they are often unhappy. It is impossible, in my opinion, to put yourself first all the time and do only what you want to do without hurting others. I know that some people don't care who they hurt, but I just don't understand how they can be happy if the people they supposedly love, are unhappy? It just doesn't make sense to me. In fact, if I'm really honest, I think it's selfish to "not care", even if you think it's "hard core". Get over yourself and look around you. Are you really happy?
Society is a funny thing. Majoring in Sociology at University truly taught me so much about the world, and I have become so much more observant since taking up the subject for the first time in year 11. People act in the strangest ways to try and fit in to certain moulds, myself included. I have wanted to be successful, making a decent living and "happy"". I have expected that this is what I need to work towards and that is what others have expected of me as well. And here I am, working full time, about to get married, saving money for a house and enjoying what my life has to offer. But I am doing that because it is what I have always wanted, or because that is what I have been expected to want? I can't answer that question, because the more I think about it, the more confused I become. I feel happy. Not all day, every day, but I constantly feel so lucky to live the life that I do. I watch people going about their lives, envying others (I am guilty of this too), desiring things they can't have or don't want to have to work to get. I see people who wander around trying to fight the mould that they have been pushed into their whole lives and I see people who struggle daily just to come to terms with who they feel they should be, regardless of who they actually are. And I think about my own situation and wonder where I will be in twenty years, if I will be pushing against the person that I am now to try and become someone else and then if I succeed in changing, who was I really in the first place?
Identity is not something that can be nailed down. It is something that changes constantly as we grow and learn, and we never stop learning. Walking blindly through life without asking yourself the tough questions is always a possibility, but where's the fun in that?
Who do you really think you are? And if you can tell me, how well do you know?
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