How many times a day do-you-do-what-you-really-want-to-do?
It seems to me we are being told a lot about who we are supposed to be or what our day should look like.
Teachers telling us what to learn, parents telling us how to behave, fashion designers telling us what to wear; commercials telling us what to buy, mothers telling their children which people to trust and which to ignore; friends telling us how to measure up to be part of the group;bosses telling us how to earn our wages, bills telling us to pay up; doctors telling us to stay out of the sun; significant others telling us to see things their way; I could go on and on.
Even my son told me the other day to please not show it when I was upset about something, because it affected him as well. I am to pout in silence. Sweet but far from what real life is about.
It made me realize how we are often told to behave a certain way basically to fit the bill of someone else, something like:
men who are not supposed to cry.
Why? Because seeing a grown man cry makes others feel out of control.
If even a big guy like him, (read: my role model) breaks down then how am I supposed to stay strong?
As such we spend our lives looking at others on what to expect instead of looking in the mirror and using our very own tools, insights and gifts to meet our challenges in life.
And here is the catch. It’s where reality and what we are being told differ to an extend where it can make or break us.
A commercial can tell me I need to buy slim trim or whatever it is called to loose my extra pounds, in order to spend a pleasant summer in my bikini, but when I’m the 56 year old mother of 4 kids, conceived and delivered in a time period of 7 years, I will never ever wear a bikini again, believe me, with or without slim trim.
This doesn’t mean however I can not have a pleasant summer; lie in the sun on the beach, read a good book and go for a swim.
Over the years I’ve learned to stop listening to what other people expect of me, when I gradually started to see that more often than not, it was in the other persons interest for me to behave a certain way rather than to my own advantage.
Then people started to call me stubborn and some of them; the ones who had the power to do so, official institutions for instance, who treat me like a number rather than a human being, even started to sanction me for not behaving according to their rules and regulations, which in fact motivated me even more to choose my own way and be the storyteller of my own life; for the only one who can live my life is me, nobody else can do that for me.
Now back to the beginning….how many times a day do-you-do-what-you-really-want-to-do.
Think about it every now an again and then take a look in the mirror and do what YOU would want to do.
