"Anne? Oh she never gets angry. She doesn't even say 'f*ck' out loud."
That was me some years ago. I may still not swear as much, at least out loud in public, but believe me I do especially when the situation calls for it. Although I prefer 'sh*t' because it's less savage. (Sigh, old habits die hard.) One of the things I swear about lately? Society, or more specifically the contradicting and often shallow standards it has set for the course of humanity's existence.
Unknowingly, our lives have been planned out for us and this has been the case for as long as I can remember. Study→Work→Marry→Kids→Retire. It's the trajectory that many of us are expected to take and if we ever intend to deviate, we're given the all unnerving side eye then the hushed voices that say we're never meant for success and happiness and that (cringe) we wasted our lives.
"That's a shitty dream (job). It'll take you nowhere."
"You don't want to marry? You'll be lonely forever."
"You're so selfish for not wanting kids."
"You need to be this or that by this age."
"You're too insert-adjective-here."
Sounds familiar? The list goes on and on. So at some point, I have come to distrust society. Not all of it because a good portion is still worth our time. What I've come to dislike (and conjointly disagree on) is how we're treated like robots with a manual. We're expected to be unique but also to conform to a standard. We're told to use our head and our voice but mocked when we speak our mind. We're always put in categories. As kids, we're told to limitlessly dream but as adults only to an extent. We're asked to be ourselves but when we do, we 're laughed at for being skinny or being thick or being a certain color of skin or for liking boys or girls or both. We're told that tears are cowardly, that things like depression are "gawa-gawa" /make believe/ (Side note: While depression may be in the mind, it is not fiction. Also, it helps to acknowledge it, talk about it and seek help from therapists.), that we have to graduate by 21 and be a millionaire by 30. It gets tiring. It gets frustrating.
Why? Because I have come to realize that success (and happiness) means different things to different people. It can be financial freedom or a big house for some but to others it simply means having dinner with people they love. We have to respect that. There is no timeline. Life is not a race as to who gets to finish what first. We all have our strengths just as we have our weaknesses. Nobody should look a certain way because we're all beautiful. Gender and sexuality do not dictate our capacity to love. The list goes on.
So here's a piece of advice. Don't let society dictate your happiness, your choices, your life. They're not going to live with the consequences of your decisions. You would. Besides this same society believes that in order for peace, we need to go to war. It's riddled with a bunch of paradoxes, a lot of legalities that aren't exactly moral and standards that never really fit anyone.
Really, f*ck this side of society.
0 comments:
Post a Comment