Column: Why should I live a ‘normal’ life?

Why should we live a normal life when we can live the life we want, the life we were destined to live? Yes I know it might sound cliche, but it’s true to an extent. From when we were little, we have been asked what we wanted to do when we grew up.

Of course common answers at that age were police officer, veterinarian, firefighter, doctor, etc. As children we have been influenced by people around us who told us what we should do when we grow up, we’ve kind of been told how we are expected to live life ever since we could remember.

“Go to school, study hard,” they say, “if you don’t succeed in school you won’t succeed in life, you won’t find a good job to support your family. Why must we have to go to school and get a job to succeed in life?”

Just let us live our life. That’s the fault of society and how society has made the life we are supposed to live. People have that concept of going to school and getting a job to be successful stuck in their head because that’s how society tells us how we should live our lives.

Why must we have to work to support our family? Why can’t we just work to support ourselves and do things for ourselves, why do we have to do things for other people? I know it sounds selfish of us but in the end of everything we only have ourselves and we need to learn to take care of ourselves and do things that will benefit ourselves because it’s our life not theirs. Don’t live up to the “expectations” of society, live life like how you want to. Live your life for you and you only.

Majority of the time teens are the ones thinking of defying the social construct of living a normal life because they are growing up and are experiencing things they never experienced before. They have opportunities to learn new things that make them change/evolve the way they think.

So when this happens teens expand their knowledge, which then could potentially make them wonder about their future. When they start to think about their future they generally picture themselves living a boring normal life, sometimes the life their parents lived which teens are usually repulsed by the thought of this, not all the time either but most of the time.

They start to think about the general goals in life which is college, get a job, start a family, work, work, then finally retire. Usually the thought of this makes teens very nervous and scared for their life because they don’t want to live this normal life, they want to live their life, whatever that might be.

I am too a teen who constantly thinks about the future and I too get scared when I feel as if I will be living a normal life. The thought of this makes chills run down my spine and makes me so anxious to the point where I feel my head will explode.

It’s a disturbing thought to think of, working a 9 to 5 job until I have enough money to retire, which the average person in America doesn’t get to retire till they are 66. Just imagine that, you are destined to work the same job for 40 years because that’s the average life for this society.

But why must we live a normal life when there’s so many things we need to experience or even try. For example bungee jumping, retiring early, not starting a family, and so much more. It’s doesn’t have to be hardcore things either it could literally be not going to school, something so simple like that.

But in our brainwashed minds we think of not going to school as a crime almost, which then we think how it would disappoint our parents. But we don’t want to disappoint our parents either do we? But if we want to live our life that means we have to take risks that people in this society are too scared to make whether that be disappointing our family and the people around us or having consequences whether they be negative or positive outcomes.

We need to get out of our shell and the mentality of life society has made for us, so we can live a life that’s not depicted as “normal”. We need to make our own story (own life) and not live someone else’s.