Embrace Your Authentic Self: Liberating from Societal Pressures

Life, in all its splendor, is the most precious gift we possess. When it fades, so do all the things we cherish. From a personal standpoint, an individual’s life holds more value than transient concepts like Motherland, evolving traditions, or even humanity itself. Throughout history, no mystic has uncovered a portal to another world or provided concrete evidence of an afterlife. Thus, we must acknowledge our existence as a singular, fleeting accident.

The Path Not Yours

Often, we surrender our lives to others, reducing our choices to trivial decisions like selecting a hair color, planning dinner, or choosing a TV series. Meanwhile, significant decisions remain beyond our grasp. We’re constantly told what we need and what we don’t. Suddenly, you’re dissuaded from attending a technical university because it’s not a place for women. Instead, you’re nudged towards commerce, as your friends suggest, to earn more money.

If you’re twenty-five and still without a spouse and children, it’s time to think about it, right? All your relatives constantly nag about this topic, hoping you’ll come to your senses. At some point, you succumb to their pressure, find a partner, have children, and live. Your relatives are happy; they’ve injected you with the elixir of a ‘proper life.’ But in reality, you’re gone. Society has absorbed your ambitions and digested everything you were. You can still find joy, but it won’t be genuine. You might learn to love your spouse, but deep down, you know it’s just habit, and you still haven’t found a kindred spirit or even someone who truly understands you.

Hostages of Tradition

This doesn’t happen without reason, and unfortunately, no one can radically change the situation. Humans have developed their own behavioral patterns, unique algorithms that helped them survive in conditions of scarcity. The ideas that any normal woman should want to have children come from the past. But this doesn’t mean we should blindly believe in their relevance.

Today, these ideas don’t save humanity from extinction; instead, they hinder us from living a full life. If we look rationally at the people who recommend following the logic of continuity, we won’t find any outstanding individuals among them—no talented artists, renowned scientists, or successful businesspeople. Instead, we’ll see people who are genuinely resentful of life. They couldn’t turn their dreams into reality and cling to scraps of meaning to somehow justify their failures. Without any achievements to their name, they’ll teach you to choose ‘correctly.’ This can turn into a dangerous game, as your closest relatives might be among these people.

Rebellion for Rebellion’s Sake

Another form of dependency lies in rebelling against tradition. It’s paradoxical but indeed related to reality. Remember your youth, when your blood was hotter than boiling water, and all advice from relatives was perceived as a challenge to your sacred freedom. It was fun, but even then, the tactic of eternal resistance didn’t yield significant results. Therefore, it’s not worth extending this period throughout your entire life, as the position of a teenager has little in common with the reasonable position of an adult. Life is much more complex than it seems. It’s not just black and white; it contains all the colors known to the human eye and a few more that we don’t even know about.

So, the right choice isn’t always between two opposites. The main question you should ask yourself is whether you truly desire something. To understand if a desire is genuinely yours and not imposed from the outside, you need to clear your mind, be alone with yourself, forget about all the people you hate and love, and ask yourself: ‘Do I really want this?’

The Ultimate Question

If the answer is positive, you should determine the steps that will help you achieve your goal. If these steps seem difficult, unpleasant, and boring, then the goal is chosen incorrectly because a true desire is always fueled by enthusiasm. You don’t need to justify it, as we do with imposed desires. You don’t need your mother’s opinion to confirm your rightness, nor do you need your friends’ approval to take a serious step. Sometimes, you need to show initiative that comes only from within you and no one else.

For further reading on finding your true self, you might find this article helpful: 9 Traits of People Who Feel Out of Place Among Relatives.