2026-08-03
I've spent a lot of my life trying to figure out the "right" thing to do, what I'm "supposed" to do. Get good grades to get into more advanced classes to get into college; do more extracurriculars to get scholarships to pay for college; get a good job to pay for the lifestyle you're supposed to live.
I think a lot of people do this, evidenced by how people react when someone does not adhere an expected norm. We're conditioned not only to adhere, but also to look down on those who behave differently.
It takes intentional effort to embrace and celebrade these deviations. It takes inner work to choose a path for yourself rather than doing what you're expected to.
I've struggled with this idea myself. A lot of it is out of fear. They say if you do what you're told, you'll have a good life. They imply that if you don't do what you're told, your future looks bleak and uncertain. But after a certain point, the playbook ends. You graduate college. You get a job. You pay your taxes. You start investing. Then what? What are the right choices to make? What comes next? What happens if your safety net fails, and the life you built doing what you were supposed to do fails?
Exacerbating the issue are companies that capitalize on this quirk of modern life, convincing people that the next thing they should do is buy these new shoes or this new car or this new house, or worse.
Notably missing from the narrative is the importance of human relationships, contentment, peace, happiness, and community. Arguably much more important to overall life satisfaction than some numbers in a bank account.
There are so many things driving us apart, making those human relationships more difficult to build and maintain. The social internet is certainly one of them. After being off the social internet for so long, it's been interesting finding new sources of inspiration on Mastodon2.
Over the years, I'd reduced my time on social media to zero, due to:
Accepting that the connection and community and freedom and safe space that the internet used to be is gone deserves a moment of mourning.
Mastodon isn't perfect, but it does solve several of the gripes I have with most social media. I'm grateful to start finding new sources of inspiration from creators new to me.
In the next(current?) chapter of my life, I want to keep close to heart the fact that I have autonomy. I can choose what to do. "They" don't know what's best for me or for anyone else, because no one has lived in this now until now. This doesn't mean running away completely and rejecting all norms - some of them are good, some of them come from the collective knowledge and wisdom of all life that came before us. But all expectations deserve scrutiny and conscious choice.
We've only got one life to live, might as well do something weird and interesting. In this next chapter of my life, I want to choose happiness and human connection more often, and be around the other weirdos doing something interesting.