Is There a Right Way to Live Life?
“When any real progress is made,
we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before.”
-Henry David Thoreau
- “I’m 25 and single.”
- “I’m 30 and unmarried.”
- “I’m 35 and childless.”
- “I’m 40 and don’t own a home.”
- “I’m 50 and my career is still unsatisfying.”
- “I’m 60 and have no clue what I want to be when I grow up.”
For many people, these statements imply, “I’m doing life wrong.” As I picture you beating yourself up over this, my heart breaks for you. Perhaps now is a good time to take a moment and ask, “Who got to decide what doing life ‘right’ means?”
Betty Friedman’s revolutionary book The Feminine Mystique explored why so many housewives in the 1950’s found themselves depressed. They did everything they were told they were supposed to do; found husbands, raised kids, took care of the home. So when they still felt unsatisfied, they figured, “Something clearly must be wrong with me. I’m supposed to be happy – I did life ‘right.’” Relief came only when they realized they were not alone. Many other women who were also “supposed to be happy” were not.
The problem lies in believing there is any “right” way to do life. There are people with good jobs, loving marriages, beautiful kids, significant savings – all the things society tells us are important life goals – who are indeed quite content. There are also people with all those same things who are miserable. There are also single, unemployed people living on a beach who are happy. There are people who work 5 hours a week and people who work 80. There are people who focus on career, and others who focus on family, travel, reading, or backgammon. There are people who live in varied climates, with varied social and romantic lives, with unconventional routines or no routines at all. Many of them come from cultures with a completely different definition of how one should live life. The truth is, there is no “right” way to live. And thinking there is will only make you unhappy because no one 100% measures up to someone else’s ideal.
I spent a lot of my life trying to live up to other’s ideals. Unconsciously seeking out careers to try to fulfill other’s unfulfilled dreams, finding a partner I thought my parents would approve of, trying to build a life that I believed society around me would deem acceptable. And I was miserable for it.
Now, I choose to believe the real goal is to figure out what works for you, and then to not feel shame about it. It’s your life; you get to decide if you are doing it right. The right way to live your life is your way. It’s no wonder you face problems when you try to fit into someone else’s preconceived notion of what you should be doing rather than figuring out what it is you want and doing that.
I’ve learned the hard way that you can never succeed in living your life to fit someone else’s ideal. If you’re trying to please your parents, spouse, or anyone else, there’s a good chance what you’re unintentionally doing is setting yourself up to resent these people.
The decision to live your life your way may be difficult for others. That’s okay. There’s a good chance they’ll get use to it eventually, although it can take time and some uncomfortable adjustment. And, if they don’t get use to it, ultimately that’s on them. As we’ll discuss throughout these letters, we can only truly work on ourselves.
The next problem is that figuring out what we really want to do is shockingly difficult. We have been taught to suppress our own desires out of fear of being called selfish. We’re out of touch with what we want on a deep level. How could we possibly go about living our lives our way if we have no clue what “our way” really is?
The great news is, asking that question is step one. You can’t fix a problem until you’ve identified it. The answers are inside you and we’re going to work to discover them. As the saying goes, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
Ask Yourself:
- What have I historically believed is the “right” way to live life? What job, relationships, and lifestyle has this consisted of?
- Am I living life my way or am I doing what others have told me is “right?”
- If I truly lived life my way, am I in touch with what that would mean for me? What job, relationships, and lifestyle would I like to live if I wasn’t worried about what others thought? If I don’t know now, could I give myself permission to spend sometime turning more attention to the question?
Next Letter: What The Hell Do I Want Anyway?