Your Life; Your Choice

In a social media-infested world; our lives are exposed for any praise, judgment, ridicule, like, or comment for the internet masses to see. We are constantly being compared, and comparing each other. Our choices and opinions are forever being sized up by total strangers. It is almost as if we are living our lives for public opinion; never for ourselves.

This has always been the case unfortunately, long before Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook; social media has just exposed a deeper problem within society on a grander scale. In the days before social media, our “followers” were our family and friends; and our parents were our harshest critics. Following their opinions, and letting them have influence, or determine choices we made for our lives, trying to appease their expectations. Never really taking ownership of our lives let alone the choices we made.

Living your life for others is depriving yourself of personal growth; you can never please everyone. You have to take the pressure off yourself. It only builds resentment for others, and yourself; people will have exceptions and hopes for you that continually change. Social pressure fluctuates all the time–especially on social media. So trying to please anyone is a waste of energy, and effort, particularly when it comes to intimate personal relationships; we end up pleasing no one–ourselves included.

Expectations are often unrealistic, and imposed on us. That’s why most people live life mentally drained; constantly struggling to find inner peace from outside sources, instead of from within. Fulfillment will always come from within; always.

To balance it all out, you must know what is most important to you. What it is that YOU want to achieve, what makes you happy; and choose what energy you give to people closest to you. A relationship with people’s expectations should be nonexistent.

Expectations are woven, and created in a social contract. If you do not speak up about your boundaries, people will assume you have no view, or character to stand by your choices, and essentially they will walk all over you, trying to your run your life. Speak up. Or people will continue invading your life.

The first step to getting rid of expectations is to treat yourself kindly. To take care of others, you have to put your own wellness first–you can’t truly love other people, if you don’t love your life first. Accepting ourselves the way we are is the foundation for a sense of long-lasting peace, and fulfillment. When we accept, and love who we are, there is no room for outside expectations.

The exceptions of others can tend to rub off on us; and we can often carry them as our own, being independent, and sure-minded in the choices you want to make for your life are vital in setting boundaries.

Knowing that you are responsible for your life is what makes everything else fall into place. It might take a long time, but the beauty is in the journey; if everything happened when and exactly how we wanted it to, there would be no beauty in the journey. When I say beauty, I mean the lessons, revelations, and realizations that make us wiser, better, and more in tune with what it is we want, and how we want it. No one can learn those lessons for you; that is the cruelest thing about life. You have to go through it.

You have one life that is uniquely yours; that only you can handle. You have to know that the choices you make in every scenario in life are what were right for that moment, and the best you could do based on what you were feeling in those moments. The situation could not have turned out any better or worse, no matter how much you tried. Live for you; get advice, but act and implement based on your own life’s mission.