I spent a lot of time and energy in my life worrying about things I felt like I had to do for one reason or another. Either everyone else was doing the thing, or specific people were pressuring me to do the thing, or I never saw real examples or models of people who didn’t do the thing, etc.
At some point I started to realize that, if I really challenged myself, I didn’t have to do some of the things I believed I had to in order to win at life (and I would include the idea of having to “win at life” on this list). I also couldn’t really blame anyone for making the decisions that I did because I felt I had to; no one was forcing me to do these things.
I mean, yes, societal pressure is very real, for some people more than others, and in some parts of the world it would be more than just frowned upon for me to not do some of these things. You know the allegory of the baby elephant tied to a stake with a rope, who even when he grows up and can easily break the rope, he doesn’t, because he’s been trained to believe he can’t? I’m just trying to constantly remind myself that I can break the rope.
Things I don’t have to do:
- have my job be a calling
- be happy all the time or even most of the time
- buy a house just to buy a house
- marry a man
- get married at all
- be in a long-term partnered relationship at all
- be a mother
- act like I hate kids just because I don’t want to be a mother
- pick one thing to do or be
- explain myself
- wear a bra with an underwire
- wear a bra at all
- be active on social media
- delete all social media in order to make a statement about not being active on social media
- be a doctor just because I went to medical school
- be a surgeon just because I did a surgery residency
- drink alcohol at a bar or a party
- spend vacation time traveling to expensive and exotic locations
- apologize if I’m not sorry
- get a degree (or otherwise pay money to an institution in order to learn stuff)
- choose between e-books or paper books
- feel bad about paying more for something I value more
- remove any of my body hair for anyone except myself
- wear a skirt suit for job interviews
- work in a field that requires suits for interviews
- know the answers to everything
- order from the menu
- jump into solving everyone’s problems when they tell me about their problems (it’s okay to just listen and be there)
- choose sides
- be busy, productive, accomplished in order to have worth as a person
- run (for exercise)
- have a gym membership in order to exercise
- have an opinion about everything
- date someone for a specific amount of time before moving in with them
- eat breakfast food at breakfast
- wait in line for a Cronut
- act like I’m too cool to wait in line for a Cronut
- respond to every email