Society, traditions, customs, schools, teachers, mentors, elders, know-it-all friends… Have you noticed that every one of them hands us a recipe: “this is right,” “that’s wrong”? Why? For our own good, of course. But while they want what’s good for us — is their idea of good really good for us?
Look at your life. Whose idea of “good” are you living here? The desires and wishes that come from within you — the genius inside you — or the model society has drawn up for you?
There’s a very easy way to find out. Answer the following questions honestly, taking time to really think about each one.
- Do you do the work you do because you truly want to — or because you feel you have to?
- Does your relationship with your partner truly make you happy? Or are you staying because you’re afraid of being alone?
- Did you really choose your worldview and lifestyle yourself? Or did you simply adopt what you saw in your family and surroundings? If you’d been born on the other side of the world, would you hold the same beliefs?
- Did you get married — or are you planning to — because you truly want to? Or because society, your family and your friends say that marrying and settling down is the right and proper thing to do?
- Are the thoughts you hold to be true right now really your truths — or what others have decided is true for you?
Perhaps the most painful experience a person can have is to look back on their deathbed and say, “This wasn’t my life. It was the life my mother / my father / society wanted me to live.”
Remember: we only come into this world once, and life is such a precious gift, given for such a limited time, that we can’t afford the luxury of living someone else’s. If you can’t live your own life as you wish, with all your heart, what’s the point of living?
This life was given to you so that you could live your own life — not so that you could become someone else.
Stop imitating. Stop straining to fit society’s idea of what’s right! What’s best and truest for you is what your heart and your desires tell you. Your heart wasn’t created only to pump blood around your body. Trust it, and ask it your questions first.
So, from today, what do you want to change in your life? What’s stopping you from being yourself? Write it down — and keep it somewhere you’ll see it.
It’s time to celebrate being able to be “me”!