You Only Have One Life, Choose the One You Want
Published in ·
--
Setting the scene.
In high school, a young woman dreams of being an architect. She excels at both math and art. When others see a beautiful skyline, she sees hours of toil at the draft board. She routinely skips invitations to house parties in favor of reading historical accounts of famous buildings. And yet, she dare not study architecture in college.
Her parents dream of her becoming a doctor. They are hard-working immigrants hoping for a better life for their kids. They have never known financial stability. They have never had status. To her parents, being a doctor exemplifies both of those things. So, from a young age her parents have always insisted that is what she should be. The daughter knows this. And she values her family above all else. So she wistfully acquiesces and studies to become a doctor. Unbeknownst to her, a seed of resentment has been planted.
Years go by and slowly that resentment starts to grow. The woman does her best to ignore it the only way she knows how, doing more work. After 10 grueling years she decides to go on a vacation, to Europe no less. When she visits Rome, she begins to weep. The colosseum, St. Peter’s, the Pantheon. All the old dreams come rushing back. A lifetime of unfulfilled aspirations laid bare.
In that moment, amongst those tears, she changes. She begins for the first time to willfully resent her parents for guiding her away from her passion. She begins to blame them. Tragically, in trying to put her family before herself, she has severely damaged both herself and one of her most precious relationships.
The opinion that holds us back the most.
Our parents.
They raise us. The love us. They sacrifice for us. We owe them so much. Yes, they deserve for us to listen to them. But what our parents deserve more than obedience is honesty and sincerity. Living the life someone else expects may work in the short term, but will likely lead to pain in the long term. This is true for every relationship. It isn’t fair. But we are likely to blame others for not doing what makes us happy. We don’t want to take responsibility, so we point fingers. No one else made us doing anything. Even so, we resent others when we choose not to follow a dream or passion. This is just easier than looking in the mirror and being accountable.
So I ask you, Is it worth it to always try and make your parents, partner, colleagues happy?
Probably not.
But I am as guilty as anyone.
Growing up I was deathly afraid of letting others down — friends, teachers, family, you name it. At the top of that list were my parents. I cared more about others having a good impression, than actually being good. It was better to seem happy than to be happy.
In college, for example, I changed majors from electrical engineering to economics. I knew this was the right choice based off my interests, but I was worried about the optics. Engineering is more difficult than economics. Would people think I couldn’t handle it? Would they think I was giving up? Telling anyone about this was difficult (if I told them at all). I would clumsily explain how I wasn’t just giving up and it actually was a rationale decision. It was readily apparent I cared more about others’ opinions than my own.
It’s long past due, but now at 24 I am finally addressing it.
Why do I bring this up? To prove a point. I can write this piece about how others struggle. I can include motivational content about how some nameless, faceless person is addressing their problem. But content like that always rings hollow to me. What I needed was to see the process of someone struggling through it day in and day out. I couldn’t find it. So, that’s what I am trying to provide. It might work. It might not. But I will do my best to provide that value to you.
