My Beliefs – Expectations & Societal Norms

Expectations and societal norms are options. If they don’t work for you don’t follow them

This is not meant to be the kind of sentence that social justice warriors rallies around. This is not about rights of different people. This is about looking at your world critically in every way. The reality is that as we walk into some kind of society there are hard rules, but not that many of them. The real hard rules are things we call laws. Even some of those aren’t really hard rules in the truest sense. Some of them are about what risk you want to take and what consequences you’re willing to live with. It might sound crazy, but if you go 1 mph over the speed limit you’re willing to risk the fact that you won’t get pulled over. If you do get pulled over you’re willing to live with the small fine. This is a law though. There are real laws and real actions with real consequences, but far fewer than people think. I tried something for a couple years that shocked some people… if I saw a door in public that didn’t have a sign on it saying I couldn’t go in there I assumed I could. We walk around the world with a preconceived notion of what doors we can and cannot walk into, but I’m not sure why. I tried out new doors from time to time and walked through them. Nothing crazy ever happened. People around me got nervous, but a lot of doors were locked. Sometimes I’d go into the wrong place and I was told I couldn’t be there. Why do we think we can’t go into certain places? I think it’s mostly a societal norm. It’s something that we learn through others, but I’m not sure why. Now I’m not silly enough to think it’s a good idea going into every door. I know there are places that are dangerous for the general public. But I think this demonstrates the point a bit… take a look around as you move through life. What doors or hallways do you not walk through? Why? Is it because you’re explicitly told not to or that you think you shouldn’t for some other reason?

I digress… realistically there are a lot of expectations based on culture or family. I was expected to go to college. I’m expected to call my parents on a certain frequency. I’m expected to do a lot of things. What each of these has in common is that they’re completely made up. The reality is I don’t need to go to college. Hell I don’t even need to show up to work if I don’t want. What’s important is that choices have consequences and choices are important. This world we live in is made up. It wasn’t discovered. We made it the way it is which means it can and will change. What I don’t like is truly engrained expectations that may or may not work for people. The reality is some people have shit relationships with their parents. Some people have great relationships, but who cares. It’s just that. The biggest thing to keep in mind is that if the world is made up and we know it can and will change why can’t you change it for you? I don’t see any reason. If something doesn’t work for you don’t follow it. If you want to change something do it. It’s that simple.

Challenging norms and expectations can often be painful. There are consequences of going out on a limb, whether a perceived or real limb. This makes challenging norms on an everyday level that much more important. Challenging these things helps you see the world for what it truly is… a bunch of choices. You can understand the consequences and even build up making these choices like a muscle. Building a view of the world as a truly flexible thing through small exercises like walking through doors won’t dramatically change your life on a random Wednesday. However, at some point somewhere this ability will serve you very well. When you see the world as flexible you can look at a shitty job and choose your way out of it. At some point you’ll have to make a hard choice in your life. If you’re used to looking at the world through the lense of choices like this it will make that choice easier. Someday you might have to choose between your career and your family. A lot of society tends to lean toward family over career. Maybe that’s right maybe that’s not. It’s up to you to decide for your situation. No one else. In that moment when you need to decide it’s better to buffer yourself from outside forces and look at your life objectively. It’s better to look at it as a pure choice with consequences. I personally think I’d choose family over career, but as I sit right now I have a career I don’t really like so it’s not much of a choice. Who knows what my life will look like when it comes time to make that choice?