https://www.alainguillot.com/the-price-of-living-your-own-life-is-letting-go-of-others-approval/
Society expects us to follow a predetermined social script, but that script doesn’t work for everyone. If you want a different life, you will face resistance from your family, friends, coworkers, and strangers.
When I came to Canada, I hoped to follow the social script as well. I wanted to get a regular 9-to-5 job, get married, and have a house and a dog. But due to racial discrimination, I was never able to get the job I wanted—I found myself locked out of that path. I had to build a life from the leftovers of society. I worked as a freelance janitor, moving from one office building to another. My social script was that of the immigrant Latino, the underprivileged class. Fortunately, I managed to educate myself and built a life that surpassed my expectations.
In North America, the typical expectations for most people are:
- Graduate from high school
- Go to college
- Get a good job
- Climb the corporate ladder
- Get married
- Have kids
- Encourage your kids to do the same
If you want a different life, you have to build it for yourself. The problem is that the more you deviate from the well-trodden path, the less comprehensible your choices become to those around you. The price of living life on your own terms is often the disapproval of others.
To live authentically, you must reject your culture’s expectations of what your life is supposed to look like. The social script dictates how your relationships should progress, how your career should unfold, and how your family should operate. Unfortunately, this script doesn’t work for many people.
Take marriage as an example. Everyone knows that it fails more often than it succeeds, yet people continue to get married. If you tell others you’re not interested in marriage, they’ll criticize you—even if their own marriages are broken and unhappy.
If you choose not to have kids, you might face judgment for not conforming to that expectation.
The same applies to jobs. Most jobs are neither necessary, interesting, nor rewarding. A full-time job is unlikely to make you rich. Financial freedom doesn’t come from employment; it comes from ownership. Yet millions of people continue to work jobs they hate just to afford the cost of living in a city where they work jobs they hate. It’s common knowledge, yet people keep signing up.
If you tell others you want to work for yourself or become an entrepreneur, they may look at you as if you’re irresponsible—even if they themselves are counting the days to retirement.
When you decide to write your own life script, your choices can make others uncomfortable. Your independence highlights their own fears and compromises. If you refuse to follow the script, you might incite envy, because your courage reflects their cowardliness.
The incomprehensibility of your choices, combined with the insecurities they provoke in others, can lead to hostility, aggression, and even ostracization.
The cost of living your own life is giving up the approval of others.
Even though the social script fails millions of people every day, they remain attached to it because it dictates how their families, friends, and communities have lived. They will struggle to understand your choices, and people rarely approve of what they don’t understand. The more your life deviates from the norm, the lonelier the journey may feel.
Entrepreneurship and self-employment can be especially isolating. Your family and friends may not support you, and that loneliness can pull people back into the social script. Many accept an unfulfilling life in exchange for companionship.
Your family and childhood friends were chosen for you by circumstance. Most friendships are accidental—formed in school, at work, or within shared communities. But how many of those friendships would still exist if you met those people today?
