“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson, one of the all-time great philosophers and one of my personal favorites, got it right.
If you happen to be amongst the minority of courageous people who remain true to themselves and live life on your own terms, consider yourself incredibly accomplished. You’ve done something that’s certainly no easy feat.
We live in a world where we are constantly pressured to strive for a life that does not necessarily align with our own desires, goals and dreams.
Many of us find ourselves living lives that reflect the expectations of others, be it from family, friends, and/or society, instead of our own.
This isn’t a huge surprise seeing that the pressure and expectation to succeed have been put upon us since we were children so how could we have known better?
As the years go by, as adults, we found ourselves putting our own desires, hopes, and dreams further on the back burner because we felt that we’ve invested far much time, money, and effort into the life that we’ve already built.
After all, we’ve got bills to pay, dependents to take care of, and expectations to meet so who has got the luxury of dreaming?…
We convinced ourselves to believe the fear of not meeting the expectations of our loved ones and those we respect have lead us to accept the notion that not everyone is lucky enough to live the life of their dreams.
If the above happens to resonate, here’s a statistic that you might not have come across before: According to the book “Top 5 Regrets of the Dying“, amongst those interviewed, their number 1 regret is not having lived life on their own terms.
In essence, in the last 12 weeks of their lives, these people felt that the regret of not taking the chance to go after their ideal life trumps everything else they’ve done and haven’t done during the course of their lifetime.
No matter what we have been led to believe, the truth is that each one of us has the capability to live life on our own terms.
However, in order to live a life that you would be proud of, you must decide to muster up the courage to shun the expectations of others and start living a life that aligns with your vision of a life worth living.
Sooner or later, you must decide that you have the power to choose to define what success means to you and dare to live life as you please. As Steve Jobs said, “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”
Read more: We’ve Got Only 1 Life to Live, Let’s Stop Killing Time!
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Hey! Yes, true words. I talk about exactly the same to my clients, followers, and close friends. I made the change years ago, and I can confirm that this is the ultimate freedom. And it’s always fun to see people I have worked with, telling me they have made the change and “chosen themselves”.
It’s a repeating subject, to be too much of a slave of societies lower norms and usually, blindly following others expectations or norms.
I see the world is changing. Passion, freedom, follow a dream, breaking out, is a hot topic at this time.
The global consciousness is changing.
Hey Johnny, thank you very much for taking the time to comment. I appreciate it. And I totally agree with you that being able to live life on our own term is THE ultimate freedom. As you said, fortunately, more and more people are realizing that life isn’t what happens to them, it’s what they make of it! 😀