“The purpose of man’s life…is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question.” — Ayn Rand
How does it happen? When we were young, we wanted to conquer the world. Be non-conformists. We didn’t want to live the same unfulfilled lives that we saw older generations live. We had a dream of what our future would look like. These aspirations were partly molded by parental and community expectations, cultural norms, religious beliefs, and societal influences. Nonetheless, our dreams began with our vision of life, what we wanted it to look like, and what we enjoyed and were passionate about.
There is a quote by Confucius that says, “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” We go to college, trade school, or get a job and then we are told by well-meaning people how difficult our endeavor may be. They tell us we won’t be able to make money or achieve that kind of success in our desired field. These folks have no problem bursting our bubble. We are reminded that we have to support ourselves and be responsible adults so the careers that we desire are frequently cast aside before they are even started.
The bigger the dream the more society and people close to us will try and persuade us to make a safer choice. Take the path with less risk. Conform to society, to religious doctrine, to cultural dogma. Come back down to reality, suck it up, and join everyone else on the hamster wheel of life!
It’s difficult to be a nonconformist in a world that will shame you for being unique, depicts vulnerability and authenticity as weaknesses, and convinces you that it’s better to be anyone other than yourself. The rite of passage in becoming an adult is to forsake everything that you are and want to be to fit in and become a clone. Daring to be different is an exhausting choice and one that will eventually be kiboshed.
We are beaten into submission by suggestions from others, who tell us that they love us and know what’s best as they impose their belief system on us. Is it to protect or control us? The voices of others in our minds convince us that we need to grow up, be practical, and base our decisions on fear and not passion or purpose.
We are convinced that more education will help us to attain a certain socioeconomic status, earn lots of money, and buy things that we don’t need, so that we may temporarily know what it feels like to be happy and quell the emptiness.
“They” will tell you the bigger your job title and home the more respect you deserve. Look your best and dress to impress. Speak properly because everyone is judging you. Be more, because you aren’t enough just as you are. Don’t be too loud, too opinionated, or too much. Keep yourself small or you won’t be able to fit into the generic box created by society. Be more, feel less. Put on the mask. Don’t let people in. Pretend everything is perfect. Conform, conform, conform, and abandon who you are.
Family members will try to manipulate, under the guise of “just wanting to help”. They do this to get their own needs met. They will define who they think you should be so that you continue with the family dance. The dance many have been reluctantly dancing for years to the repetitive songs that they dislike.
Individuals stay in marriages that have turned into dispassionate friendships or business partnerships. The red flags that were there before marriage eventually become magnified. Try harder and make it work. That’s what older generations did. Compromise even though you feel broken and unheard. Forgive and forget despite the hurtful words, and dysfunction. Desert yourself for the needs of others or you will be labeled as selfish. That’s what we are programmed to do, isn’t it? Work. Get married, your clock is ticking. Have kids. Go into debt and become a prisoner of your own life. Live the dream. Everyone does it!
We do the right thing, raise our children, take care of our parents, and tend to everyone around us as we slowly and unnoticeably abandon ourselves and give up on what was important to us.
Catch up or fall back as life gets faster and faster and continually spins out of control. We work toward the next milestone and the bigger upgrade. If those don’t come in time, we are deemed as failures by societal standards. We begin to live vicariously through others. Sometimes the “others” are our children, family, friends, or people on television and social media that outwardly look to be living a charmed life. All the smoke and mirrors around us make one feel as if we are the unlucky ones. Regrets of living a safe life and not taking chances surface. We have to remember that life is a learning experience, and we are supposed to make mistakes. No one is immune to heartaches and disappointments. Without pain, we would not be able to fully appreciate the pleasures in our lives.
When we become cognizant that more than half of our time here is behind us, we concede that we have become zombies like those before us, walking numb through life. Somewhere along the way, we stopped feeling, loving, and connecting. We lost hope.
We may reflect on the paths we took and ask ourselves many questions. Did we fuck up? Should we have gone left instead of, right? How did we get here? Have we been on autopilot? What happened to us? Did we become our parents? Who are we now? How can we pick up the pieces? Is it too late? Did we accomplish all our dreams and goals, or did we conform and try and fit into others’ expectations and lose ourselves?
A dear friend that I have known since I was twenty-one said to me, “You know we are closer to eighty than twenty.” Holy shit!! How did that happen? Where did our lives go? We don’t feel old. We are still vital, silly, and have the same inappropriate humor. When we chat on the phone we act like goofy kids and laugh our asses off, it’s as if time has stood still. We are old souls with youthful spirits. Aging is inevitable but growing old is a choice and so is giving up on what you dreamt of.
“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” — Langston Hughes
It’s time to regain consciousness, because if not now, then when? Ignore practicality and shut out the negative words that the brain replays. Reclaim your soul and commit to listening to the heart and intuition so that your inner compass will recalibrate and you can live a life full of passion and purpose. It’s never too late to start again.
Survey life and walk away from people, relationships, situations, places, or careers that don’t serve you. Wake up from the deep sleep of compliance and conformity and break the chains of the self-inflicted prison. Remove the layers of amour that accumulated over the years and that protected us from all the pain and disappointment that we endured. Commit to loving and honoring ourselves, our needs, and our desires.
Decide to live your best life and not give a fuck what anyone thinks because as we learned, people will talk about others regardless of whether one is a good person or not. They will view people from their perception and also their reflection. They will gossip if someone is doing poorly and still have something to say if one is doing well. Those who have time to focus on others’ lives are usually the people who don’t want to reflect on their own. They keep their closet padlocked so nothing falls out. The false narratives they created to protect themselves will eventually come to the surface, as you can try and run from yourself and your pain, but you can’t hide. As Carl Jung said, “what you resist persists.”
Here we are, middle-aged as they call it even though more than half of our life is behind us. We begin to reflect on our life journey and become humbled as we recall how many friends and family members we lost. Desensitized as we gaze at our internal graveyard of lost dreams and visions and commiserate on how we thought life would unfold. No one warned us that this would happen because they too were beaten down by the world and dozed off along the way. You can’t wake someone up if you yourself are comatose. Plus let’s face it, misery loves company. If I had a dollar for every time I was gaslighted and led to believe that living a life that lacks passion and purpose is “just the way it is” I’d be a very rich woman.
At what point do we say no more and live for ourselves? When do we grab the pen from others and write our own story with our desired ending? Not the ending that someone else decides for us. Not a miserable ending of lying on the proverbial deathbed with a plethora of regrets and what-ifs. It’s time to wake up, change the narrative and be authentically who we were supposed to be all along.
It’s time to remove the masks we have become accustomed to wearing for so long and get back to basics. Back to the hopeful and vibrant people we were before life got in the way and beat the shit out of us. A life filled with compassion, true connections, and unconditional love for ourselves and others.
During my studies for becoming a life coach and hypnotherapist in my late fifties, I came across an exercise to do with clients who were trying to become unstuck and rediscover themselves. The exercise is listing what you envisioned for your life and what your passions were when you were seventeen. That’s when we aren’t jaded, still impulsive, naive, and heart-centered. It was right before we were compelled to conform to a life that the masses decided for us. Try it and let me know what you uncover.
Who were you and what did you enjoy doing before you became anesthetized by life? It’s not too late to reclaim your power and live your best life and live it for you!
“And once you are awake, you shall remain awake eternally.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
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Thank you for reading and following me. This year has been a busy and transformative one for me. The past four or more years have been a bit bumpy, but the light at the end of the tunnel is apparent and I continue to live my best life through it all. A few years ago, after spending decades of being a people pleaser and living life by other people’s rules, I woke up from my deep sleep and decided to live my life for me. I rediscovered the person I lost along the way by reflecting on my life, going within, writing, embarking on a new career, and embracing my spiritual path. Now I hope to assist and support others on their similar journey of reawakening. Click here to find out how to connect with me and to see what else I am working on. Sending you all love and light!
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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