Societal standards are bullshit. You are a human, with an amazing mind and your own view of this beautiful world, but you have been trained to now know it.
Your entire life has been one long induction ceremony into the rules of society. As a baby, you learn how to hold your food, sit at the table, when to laugh and when to cry. As a toddler, you learn how to walk, how to dress, how to speak, to control your emotions. As a preschool-age (3-5) you start developing your own routines, you’re taught where you put your things, how to clean, how to follow direction, advanced eating and speaking, how to read and write.
Then enter school. Most public schools follow the same routine, but also follow the basic 9-5 schedule (7-3, 8-4, etc.), teaching us to follow the format of office workers and machines, not humans with a freedom of choice.
Elementary school (kindergarten-grade 5) teaches you the basic foundations of learning, but it also teaches:
How to interact with peers
how sit in class, the “right” way to learn
advanced control over emotions
how to ride public transport (school buses)
when the right times to eat are
that using the bathroom is an inconvenience
to bring your work home with you
and more.
Middle school (grades 6-8) teaches you:
how to follow a specific schedule
how to control your desires
that you only have 20 minutes to eat because basic human functions are an inconvenience
society standards of how puberty feels and how to act like your biological gender
to spend more time on the work you bring home
and more.
High school (grade 9-12) tells you:
that we are adults but don’t have our own rights
have freedom of choice but have to ask permission
that we are supposed to contribute to society but not to ourselves
that if we don’t bring our work home (out of the office) we won’t be successful
that we must fill our schedules with as much extracurriculars as possible to not have time to explore what we might enjoy.
Between all of this induction in the educational system, we are also being taught the “right” way to do everything outside of school:
- how to brush our hair
- how to clean our homes
- how to shower
- how to use our furniture
- how to assemble our living spaces
- how to live every second of our lives so we can no longer think for ourselves and we lose all creativity.
This helps breed the 9-5 drones that work 40-80 hours per week just to live paycheck-to-paycheck, becoming anxious, depressed, broke, and confused, mindless to the fact that we are being told what to do from the day we’re born, ‘til the day we die.
One of the biggest things that you are never taught: You can choose whether or not you follow those rules. Now, hear me out, I know that there are laws and you will face legal proceedings if you don’t follow them, but on the small, day-to-day minute-to-minute actions, you have the choice on what you do. For example, we have been taught that our beds should be flush against the wall, providing a U or L-shape walkway through your bedroom, but why? There are historical reasons, I’m sure, but those aren’t relevant for today’s society. If you have the space, why not put your bed dead center of your floor. Why do you place your pillows on a specific side of the bed, why not switch the direction you lay in every night? Also, every item you have can be used for more than one purpose, like why not use a cat tree as a standing desk (aside from a mad cat)?
- Instead of listening to the “right” way to hold your fork, hold it however you damn well please.
- Instead of brushing your hair a specific way, change up your cut, brush it a different way, wear it however you damn well please.
- Instead of sitting at the dining room table, lay on it on your belly while slurping your food, eat however you damn well please.
Point is, there are so many laws that we have to follow, why do we force ourselves to follow the rules of society? So long as you are not hurting other people, you are maintaining your hygiene, and you are following the laws: stop giving a fuck about societal standards. Meditate in line at the post office, skip through the aisles at the grocery store, dance down the sidewalk on your lunch, sing at the top of your lungs when you’re stuck in traffic, wear a rainbow of clothes that make you feel good. Stop giving a fuck how people view you in public, if people judge you, acknowledge that it’s their problem and not yours. If you see somebody else doing these things in public, take a second to think what society has trained you to think, then congratulate them for being 100% themselves and not caring anymore.
Societal standards are bullshit. You are a human, with an amazing mind and your own view of this beautiful world. Live your life how you want to, find your source of happiness, and enjoy every second you have, because life is too short to not be happy.
Thank you for reading this. Make sure you share it so your friends can enjoy it too.
I am grateful that our paths have crossed, please reach out for anything.
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