So You Want To Live Your Best Life
But Are You Ready To Pay The Price?
Always choose yourself.
My time, my decisions, my attitudes, my choices.
If it is not making my life better, it is not worth it.
My way or the highway.
These attitudes are a big part of the contemporary culture. Promised by psychotherapists, lifestyle coaches and motivational speakers. Sounds great and comforting. But guess what? I am not here to tell you otherwise. You can absolutely live your best life and always choose what you want. The question is, do you know the price and are you ready to pay it?
It is called the acceptance by others. The cost of living your best life on your terms is the social acceptance of your family, friends, spouse, colleagues, and society in general. And that is the Achilles heel of most people. They want to be loved and accepted. They usually choose their dreams not because it is their true calling, but because they think that once they have done it, love and acceptance are guaranteed. Just look at the most common dreams of people. Being a millionaire, becoming a famous actor or a singer, you name it. All of these factors lead to perceived acceptance by society. This is the most natural of human emotions. They just can’t let it go.
But let me tell you this. You can’t be accepted by everybody and live your best life at the same time. It is just not possible. If you want company and acceptance, you have to negotiate with other people. This usually leads to some compromise. And it means it’s not your way anymore. Sometimes the desperance of being loved and accepted is so strong, that their way becomes your way. Slowly but surely you adopt their attitudes as your own. And then you are in trouble.
Social disapproval. For some people it means death. And they are ready to walk miles just to get it. They are never going to be able to live life their way. They are simply not cut for this type of sacrifice. I mean common, if you are sad and depressed that you do not get enough likes on your social media post, do you really think you can handle this? Do you think you don’t care what they think? You are ready to do anything to get their approval. Anything.
Loneliness. This is a big one. Society might not be on your side and if that sounds bearable to you, think about this. Your family is not on your side. You do not have friends, because they think your choices are intolerable. You do not have a spouse. They also think that your best life does not complement their best life. They think you have to change your attitude to stay in a relationship with them. No compromise. Still here?
Do you now understand, why most people are not living their best lives? They just can’t handle the social disapproval and loneliness it takes to have things your way. Remember the topic of boundaries and why most people struggle with it? It is very easy to have boundaries if you are ready to leave everyone who does not respect it. But people are afraid to be alone. So they tolerate a lot of BS. And it is directly proportionate to your level of self-contentment.
Living your best life is a journey. To make it happen you must leave people and things behind. You must reevaluate what is important to you. You must make hard choices in order to live an easy and simple life. Cut all the unnecessary drama, manipulation, jumping through hoops, disrespect but companionship, relationship, tap on the back and support as well. You must learn a lot of new things like courage, resilience, being your best friend, self-respect, self-reliance, social skills, awareness, the power of walking away, and self-love. It takes time.
The journey towards your best life requires a complete redesign of your values, belief system, relationships, and often your occupation, livelihood, hobbies, and geographical location. This does not happen in a day. You are lucky if you get to live your best life in your lifetime. But it takes every single day to make decisions that bring you closer to it. Are you ready to do what it takes? Can you handle the cost of living your best life?
Tomas, what a great piece. Can completely relate with it. Every day is a battle in between living our best life vs. the life others want for us.
I still struggle with figuring out what I really want to do career-wise and not be biased by what social media or my family says. In your journey towards your best life, did you struggle with this as well? If so, how did you overcome it??
All of this fundamentally depends on how you define value. Is value personal skills and achievements? Is value connection and doing things for others? Because if it's the first, then I agree that it might be necessary to cut ties, and sacrifice connection for your personal growth and aims.
However, if it is the second, "your best life" would be intimately interwoven with others. It would be detrimental to make these kind of sacrifices only to retreat within yourself. You lose genuine change through personal connection.
We're all on a journey to figure out what we value, and what we want to call "the good life." It could even change along the way!
Thanks for your thoughts and writing :)