It’s all up to you

Something quick that I wrote for Woroni. I had originally wanted to reflect at greater length on communitarian vs. individualistic culture but I've decided that everything substantive that I wanted to say is included below, so I'm just going to post this.

One of the greatest obstacles to authentic existence is social expectations. By authentic existence I mean living the way you want to live, being the person you want to be, keeping it real. By social expectations I am not so much referring to diffuse mores, norms and laws as the specific expectations of peer groups, parents and your class.

I’m sure we’ve all come across people who conform to expectations to their own detriment. Perhaps you are one of them. The obvious examples are students who study subjects they hate with the fire of a thousand suns because their parents told them to, Singaporean businessmen who import wives from Thailand at 35 because they are expected to get married at that age, girls who hide their intelligence and people who never take the time to think about what they actually want/need money for.

Often people in the thrall of social expectations speak as though they have no choice in the matter, but I have to agree with Frank Zappa on this one:

 

‘If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.’

You get one shot at life and time is very precious. If you’re spending it doing something purely for someone else’s sake then you need to spend some time looking in the mirror.
 

This is not to say that sometimes doing things to make other people happy is not a worthy thing, or that it can’t be done authentically. The key is to take ownership of your actions. If you’re an artist studying commerce because you want to make your dad happy and that means more to you than studying art, power to you. But be aware of the decision.
 

The French existentialists have a phrase for not taking responsibility for your actions: bad faith. You are the one that makes the choices in your life and there is always a choice. Often the compromise is very difficult, like choosing homosexuality over familial affection, but the choice is always available. I’m not disparaging people who went the ‘easy’ way in a difficult decision, I’m disparaging those people who deny they ever had the chance to make the decision in the first place, or perhaps worse, were not even conscious of the fact that they had a choice.
 

Too many people refrain from going against the grain because they are scared they’ll have no friends, or won’t be part of the cool clique, or won’t have high status. But if Disney has taught me anything it’s that status comes from being yourself. The coolest people are the people with character, and you’ll be damn hard pressed to have any if you’re always acting like someone you’re not.

The most glorious thing about metropolis living is that you will always find people who are similar to you if you look hard enough. The enormous male ‘My Little Pony’ subculture on the internet is testament to that. So as Hendrix said: wave your freak flag high.