Society has made us (all) window dressers (misrepresenting to create a favourable impression). It is now a crime to live by your own rules and be what you want because that will be you going against the rules and preconceptions of what society expects.
Many people are in places they don’t want to be, in marriages they don’t want to be and living a life they don’t want or cannot afford because of me, you and Google (you may not understand why I said Google, but googling who an ‘ideal’ partner is and going according to someone’s personal experience is another way of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole). Society is all about perfection and one thing we can NEVER achieve is perfection so it’s like going on a wild goose chase. Being unique is not the norm.
A beautiful/handsome/pretty person should be this way and possess this or that, a person who has attained or achieved this or that is what we call successful; you should do and be this or that kind of person by this age… etc. We pick people, habit and lifestyles we don’t necessarily want, but subconsciously, we are doing it because we want other people to approve of us.
We’re letting our family, friends’, and co-workers’ opinions on what a good long term partner or relationship looks like dictate our relationships and ultimately, our lives. We’re showing off our ‘trophy’ girlfriends/boyfriends and even our children and they are not people we’ve always had in our ‘mind’s eye’ to really be in relationships with but what has been chosen for us (literally). Humans are somehow wired to conform but it becomes a problem when we know what we want but not ready to wean ourselves off of what society expects from us. I don’t think people don’t know who and what they are but they are all are going by what society says is best.
Parental influence is one grey area which has led people into unhappy marriages, failed marriages and loss of identity. Some parents (mothers especially) have abused the ‘honour your father and mother quotation so much and has pushed their children into unhappiness. At a certain age, one should be married (forgetting that age has nothing to do with maturity). Parents have forced and bullied their not-yet children into marriages which has led to nothing but disaster.
If one is from a very strict religious background, it must always come into play when the issue of marriage is brought up. Being pregnant out of wedlock MUST be ticket to marriage for someone who doesn’t want to marry yet or doesn’t want to settle with that person. You see some marriages where the man/woman is so near but his/her heart and mind is far off with someone else. How do you expect such a marriage to hold? Some of these guys who had failed interracial marriages are/were ‘victims’ of their parents who craved for ‘obroni ba’ (mixed race kid).
Some churches (oh, the worse culprit) is another influencer that is causing more harm than good. They have written their own bible as to who, what and how a person should live and run his/her life. A church especially this one-man churches, where the pastor suffers from ‘Drama Deficiency Disorder’ must approve of a lady’s would-be partner before agreeing to join them in holy matrimony. It a MUST to marry a church guy/girl and you can’t even argue your case because so far as ‘Christians’ are concerned, the good one is always in the church and there is no way a non-believer can make a good husband or wife. Some churches refuse to marry a couple because the lady is pregnant. If they’ve gone through the traditional marriage, are they not husband and wife already?
The company and the friends we keep sometimes rob us of our happiness. We fear the backlash from being with the type of person we really want or from having the type of relationship or lifestyle that we inherently crave, because they disapprove of them. But what’s good for the goose isn’t good for the gander and what worked for your married friend won’t necessarily work for you. In a lot of ways, we’re not trying to satisfy ourselves, we’re trying to appease societal norms and we’re letting that hinder us from a true connection and ultimate happiness.
You know where the shoe pinches not a bystander. Be happy with who or what makes you happy not the person others ‘think’ will make you happy. I think being honest with yourself about who you are and what you want in life is the first thing you need to do in order to get a strong stance about your position/choices in life. Do that correctly, and what society says won’t matter. Societal norm is really not cool anymore. We have lied so much to ourselves that the lies are becoming the new truth.
The pursuit of happiness is a one man/woman journey, not parents, husband, wife, girlfriends, boyfriends, colleagues or friends. Don’t rob yourself of happiness because one thing with humans is we’re never pleased and satisfied. The day we stop caring and bothering about societal standards is the day we are truly going to get comfortable in our own skin. Discretion is the key. Everything we go through and happens in our day to day life is a learning curve and learning from life is necessary. You can’t be what others are if that isn’t you or what you want to be!
Some things just don’t make sense to some people no matter how much they dissect them but if it makes perfect sense to you, why follow them?….By the way, society’s guidelines are not working for us but we still follow them…