I Hear Voices

A long time ago, I wrote (by that I mean typed) down some ideas for my blog. I typed them up on a whim, whenever an idea entered my head to explore more later. It may be quite a bit later, but I thought I'd look them up again. This is one idea I wrote down. I don't know what sparked the idea, but thought I'd share it:

You can't let society's voices dominate your life; tell you what to do, how you should feel, how you should be, and especially in order to find happiness. Those who constantly seek happiness in other places outside themselves rarely happens, and usually becomes depressing and demeaning. You can't worry about what other people think about you. "When you try to please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody." Especially yourself. You have to do what makes you happy, not what makes other people happy. I'm not saying to become a total hedonist, although is it really so bad? As long as you do nothing immoral? I think you need to put yourself and your needs, wants, happiness first before anyone else, including a significant other. 

Not that you should discount your lover's happiness, and try to make them happy. As long as you're happy doing it. You can't make them happy if you're not happy. If you're not happy being with them, then you need to let that person go, because it's only fair to yourself and to that person. It may break the other's heart, but you can't do it to them. Hopefully they'll find happiness with someone who is in love with them back. I am speaking partially on personal experience. But those men were not good to me, and I knew I couldn't live that way for the rest of my life. Or theirs, whichever came first. I wasted too much time on each of them. We only get one life, as far as I know, and not long at that. Life is too short to spend years in a loveless relationship, whether on one side or both. I rarely got to do anything I wanted, too busy doing what they wanted. So off with them. I enjoy being single. No one making any demands on my time, dragging me to things I don't want to do, but I try to make them happy. And spend so much time trying to make them happy even if it made me unhappy, and then resenting them for it. I really didn't mean to go off on this tangent. 

What I wanted to talk about was society, and its pressure, and the pressure we put on ourselves. Whether personal, or because it's expected. Are our wants truly our wants, or because it's been ingrained into us, and because it's what we've seen since the day we were born. We're supposed to go to college, find a lucrative job in the field you studied for, get a nice car, get married (preferably to someone from college - your college sweetheart), get a nice house, have children, and it's better if you're a good Christian. Each is an accomplishment of attaining adulthood. If you don't accomplish these things, then it's like you're not quite an adult. I had a lot of these things at one time in my life. A  good job, a nice car, a nice house, some money put away. A couple of fiancés. But then the recession happened and I lost it all. It was also the job I was in. That was after the fiancés. Here no there, I often wonder how much society motivates our goals. Do we purely want them without motivation from outside sources, or because it's, well, like what we're supposed to do? Nature vs. nurture. The everlasting question. This is what I think I no.