Do you ever feel like what you want to do goes against what society ‘wants’ you to do?
Like, maybe you want to be a painter, but your parents and your school tell you that you’ll never make any money.
Maybe you want to take a gap year after high school but your parents fear you’ll never go to college and, thus, never ‘amount to anything’.
Maybe you are attracted to people of your same sex but your religion tells you that’s wrong.
I think you get what I’m saying. It’s kind of like my ‘Are vs Should Problem’ and the many episodes I dedicated to figuring out who you ARE and who it is you feel like society, your parents, and your religion tell you you SHOULD BE.
So this episode is about that, but it’s also about a more general, yet pervasive, set of ‘rules’.
For me, this started very young, maybe six years old. I realized that, in order to live my life, I was going to have to spend that life working. I was surrounded by people who didn’t seem to like their jobs, so I also learned that working pretty much sucked.
Even at this early age, I realized life was about things I didn’t want to do.
I also realized that ‘society’, whatever that was, regulated the things I could and could not do. It was as if I had to get permission to be myself. Surely, many people can relate to this feeling.
The most basic form of permission is working to earn money to pay for your life.
How awful is that?
I’m not sure what initiated this feeling that I needed permission, but it is a fairly pervasive element in this life we live. If we are privileged enough to have a choice.
But we don’t need permission to live. The fact that we are lucky enough to be born is all the evidence we really need. I talk about this in Episode 99: The Uniqueness Imperative. But we miss that. Society, religion, family, work, and culture beg to differ. They want us to EARN our way, and I just can’t get behind that.
We don’t need permission to live.
If only it were that simple. I can tell you all day long that you don’t need permission to follow your dreams, date who you want, or wear whatever clothes you want — as long as you obey the Golden Rule and harm no one in the process. But it won’t do any good. The brainwashing, the INDOCTRINATION that you experienced is just too strong.
We really need to get away from the idea that earning money permits us to fulfill ourselves.
We deserve to get our needs met, as long as doing so doesn’t harm others. Though we don’t all have equal access to pursuing our dreams and needs, those of us that do owe it to everyone to try.
We owe it to our ancestors who suffered for our success. Whose traits were selected for and persist in us. Expressing these traits is the highest of achievements.
Yet, that’s not how we measure achievement.
We measure ‘success’ in the form of money. How effed up is that?
Money is just something we made up. Your DNA is what makes you you and links you to everyone else.
But you don’t have to play this game. You can do what you want. You can follow your own path. Listen to the beat of your own drummer. Listen to your heart. Whatever it means to you to be yourself. The person you ARE.
You have my permission. Not that you needed it.
You can find Knowledge + Experience Podcast wherever you get podcasts.
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https://www.buzzsprout.com/530563/13880695
YouTube video here:
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