Are You Living A Bad Life By Not Conforming To Society’s Standards?
The line between what is considered good and bad living in today’s society seems to be determined by external factors rather than internal ones.
To the point that what it means to be content with one’s life is more about what can make other people believe that you are happy, instead of actually feeling like it.
I’ve always been the type of person who’s relied on people’s perception of me even though what I show to other people doesn’t speak the same as what I actually felt inside.
Being impatient with catching up with other people’s achievements just so that I could flaunt some of my own, absolved from any goals and aspirations
Meaningless luxuries and connections to boast about just to make it seem as if my life was fulfilling for the sake of gaining feedback and praise from others. Only so that for a brief moment, I could feel what it means to be human.
What does it mean to be human in the first place? What makes someone a fully-developed individual with great achievements? With a well-received disposition? A life that looks complete?
People push you to reach the unattainable, to garner as many friends and colleagues who’ll speak highly of you, and to be seen in places that are extravagant.
To stay fit, active, and on the go. To never remain inert doing the same thing and if you were to do the same thing for the rest of your life, it has to at least contribute something worthwhile to existing systems and industries that’ll compensate you for your consistent efforts.
To be seen as successful, rich, and productive.
All my life, this is what I was taught to believe that makes a person happy, for their happiness to be so transparent others will not help but take a good look at them and aspire for the same thing.
To basically have some tangible proof that yes, I am happy. For you to present your happiness to the world like some beautifully wrapped gift so that you could avoid being seen as anything less than what people strive for.
To be ideal.
Even if it means abstaining from what you want for the sake of succumbing to what other people want from you, stopping yourself as you think “No, this is not what’s considered ideal.”
Even if it means forcing yourself to stay cramped in the corner of a crowded room, only so that you can be seen joining in on the party.
Even if it means not being genuinely happy with what you’re letting yourself endure, feeling great discomfort through it even, but stopping as you try to convince yourself that “No, this is what’s considered ideal.”
… But sometimes, what’s considered ideal for others, isn’t ideal for you.
At a young age, I never had the same interests as other people. Whether it was involving myself in social circumstances that only suffocated me, or pushing myself to befriend groups of people that I didn’t even like let alone share any interests with, only so that I could feel like I belonged.
Even if those same groups of people only isolated me much more than they actually made me feel like I was one of them, instead I found solace in individual activities that didn’t have to stimulate me physically but rather intellectually and emotionally. That’s what made me happy.
But of course, people always felt the need to disrupt that moment’s worth of joy by making it seem as if having no friends or people to talk to seemed pathetic and lonely.
But I didn’t feel lonely, if anything, I felt more one with myself than I ever was when I reached out to others to gain a better understanding of myself, only to end up feeling invalidated when I expressed my interests and opinions.
But of course, if being happy means interacting with a bunch of people that you barely have one-on-one conversations with to feel as though you are being productive with your time, then sure, I’ll try.
Even if doing so only drains me of my energy.
This insecurity affected me the most during the start of the pandemic, and although I understand many people rely on outdoor activities for work or leisure time, for me personally, it didn’t really change much from how I normally lived my life before Covid-19.
If anything, I even got as much work done that I wasn’t able to do due to being pulled away from my obligations concerning the outside world (e.g attending school and doing errands)
I wasn’t compelled to conform to societal expectations because this time I had a valid pass. I didn’t have to feel guilty about not going on some massive trip to the beach during the summer, spending the holidays with relatives or friends, or being in contact with as many people because guess what? It’s against the protocols.
As twisted as it may sound, a part of me almost felt gratified that everyone was forced to stay isolated in their homes, because then I had an excuse.
It was only until a massive wave of people on Twitter started posting about how they felt stuck, lonely, and miserable and proceeded to question how anyone could live in such a way.
Without the company of other people, strangers, friends, or colleagues, to not go out partying, or attending concerts and clubs, and how this abrupt change was suffocating for them.
But it wasn’t for me, before anyone even expressed their sorrows my life didn’t change one bit aside from having to wear a piece of fabric on my face before I went to take the trash out.
Before this sudden outrage, I had no reason to think of me finding some form of pleasure in being stuck in my house without feeling the need to have some type of human interaction worrying. I, of course, felt the frustration over occasional financial bumps in the road much like everybody else, but aside from that? I felt liberated.
But the way people kept going on and on about how being stuck at home was sad and depressing made me feel insecure about being isolated despite how I had every reason to stay at home during quarantine.
It made me reevaluate the way I lived my life, and even though what people kept complaining about never even crossed my mind as something I ever wanted to do in the near future, it still made me wonder what if?
What if I actually reconsidered doing any of these things instead of what I planned for myself and set aside my own enjoyment, would I be happier? Even if I knew that these things weren’t gonna make me happy because I know myself and I know what I want.
But still, I couldn’t help but feel remorseful over a life that could’ve been, over a possibility that could’ve been achieved if only I just pushed myself harder to be someone different.
If only I just didn’t act a certain way, or spoke in a certain way, or thought in a certain way that always made me feel like I was in a bubble, alone with my own thoughts and feelings.
Where I could feel so content floating in my own realm, bouncing on different angles and corners, relishing in my own space and indulgences. But that bubble is transparent and you could see everyone else living their own lives with other people, having already popped their own bubbles while I stayed in mine, because that’s where I felt the safest.
By myself.
It took quite some time to dismantle this way of thinking, but even now I’m still having a hard time coming to terms with who I am as a person and what I actually like, but it’s hard, especially in a world that constantly dictates everybody’s lives.
This is why I don’t like it when people sample a very specific lifestyle in order to illustrate a bad or good way of living, because what does that even mean?
Isn’t it enough to find fulfillment from something another person doesn’t like or to dislike a certain thing someone does like, without either one of them trying to label it as definitively good or bad? Isn’t it enough that you just find joy in it, without anybody else’s input?
It’s okay if you don’t find joy in being alone, but being alone doesn’t automatically translate to being lonely.
It’s okay if you need the company of others to feel secure because wanting to be around other people doesn’t automatically translate to being needy.
We shouldn’t label anything as ideal or non-ideal because at the end of the day, what works for you doesn’t always work well for others.
What you perceive as successful isn’t someone’s definition of being successful, what’s ordinary for you is extraordinary for someone else, and what makes you happy makes another person feel empty, but that doesn’t mean you have to feel guilty for the sake of someone else’s feelings that’s out of your control.
What truly matters is that there are no ideal circumstances in life. What we consider personally fulfilling for ourselves shouldn’t have to require feedback from other people.
It’s about what’s important for you, and how you would prefer to walk in your own lane, no matter how fast or slow the speed of your strides are, because it’s more about how you feel about the journey than just being able to say you’ve reached a particular destination.
