Do you live as you are - or do you live the life that is expected of you?

As anew born, we are as we are meant to be. We fight for survival and attention by crying. If a baby doesn't get attention, it will just continue to cry. And that is vital, because a baby need attention and food to survive. A baby doesn't adjust to their surroundings, instead the surrounding must adjust to the baby. This is also the case during a child's first years, and the baby just moves on, naturally learning new skills with self confident and joy. But this conditions change during children’s growth. Even if most parents don't consciously try to shape their child in a certain way, we’ll do it anyway.

Children learn early that they get praised for good performance. And it is important for man to be popular, so obviously we are supposed to praise our children. But what are we parents normally praise? In most cases, we praise for performance. How often do we praise children for standing their ground against others, or praise them for simply being wonderful as they are, whiteout performance. After years of feed back for performance the child slowly but steady learn to adjust to the environments preferences first, and it’s one wish last. Man adapt, because we want to be liked by others, we need confirmation. It is also important to be part of a relation, a community. Nobody can live on there one.

Being like everybody else and not be different was even more important in the past when several generations and small villages work hard together to just survive. To be different could mean ostracism and to be mocked by others. Nowadays most people don’t live that way anymore. And we are now at a turning point, in a shift in the way we live!

In the old days we would learn skills and knowledge to fit in to our environment or in a particular role. We choosed education and profession from where there were vacancies, and then we stayed there troughout our working lifes. Our jobs become a part of our identity. For some people this is still the case today.

I believe that this is against human nature. If man had originally been satisfied with learning just one thing in life, we had still been sitting by the fire, with stone tools in a cave!

Man need development, challenges and we need to feel that our life has a meaning. If people feel lost and bored most people solve this in one of to ways.

One way is that they strive on, living the way it is expected of them. And they should be happy because they have a relatively good life, but they are not! Just to participate in life without really living can in the long run lead to boredom, discontent and disease. This type of man is stuck in a downward spiral in which the negative is increasing, because their negative thoughts increase. These type of man can not see the "forest for the trees", or just "sees the holes in the cheese". I have met many of this type and sometimes I find myself to behave the same way.

As example, picture a beautiful day in springtime, the sun gives warmth, early spring flowers are blooming and the bird’s offers concert. If you meet this type of person in such a day the conversation can develop like this:

Hi, how are you, such a beautiful day, what a lovely weather! And the person replies; But the wind is blowing.

That the wind is blowing is the only thing this person observe, because she/or he has stopped noticed the joy or the good things in life. And with just one sentence from this type of person you are taken down on earth. And you know that now you can prepare yourself on hearing about all the misery in life!

The other type is going in the opposite direction and become an over doer or out performer. They build there life on buying and consuming in order to get status. They have big houses, new cars, expensive clothes, make several long distance travelling per year and they are best at all levels. Or it is supposed to look that they are perfect. They are usually successful, well educated, well trained, always smiling, always on the move, very social, has fine dining with great socializing. And on top of it, many of them also manage to be a parent that supports their child’s sport with great commitment and they always volunteers to be class parents. Ugh!

None of this lifestyles are attractive, and I sometimes wonder how people can stand it! Even if I have exaggerated a bit, I personally know people who live like this. People in the first category is stuck in negative thinking and boredom and I don't think anyone wants to live their life like that. Some people who live like I described in the second case, can enjoy it! But I suspect that many of them would not live in such a tempo if they just didn't bother with the expectations from others.

Instead of wasting time on living the life that is expected of us, we should find out who we are as a person and find out what suits us! This knowledge should instead be the starting point for how to create your life and the way you choose to live. Since every man is unique there isn´t only one truth!

If people lived as they were and was true to themselves the well being and probably our health would be improved. We would have greater happiness, productivity and creativity. Today, many people choose to change jobs and start a new direction in working life one or more times. Some people change course overall and do something completely different from before. This is commonsense because we constantly develop and changing throughout life.

This new lifestyle is life-affirming and has positive effects. The more we are satisfied with the life we live, the better we feel with ourselves.

A few of us are affirmed for who we are, but only when we do the "right" things. The message is that there is something fundamental wrong with us. That is why many people walk around and are afraid of not being good enough or to be "revealed" for not being as good as they appears to be, based on their way of life. To live like that takes a lot of energy from people. To play a role takes energy. And jet, that is the most usual behavior. It isn´t easy to know what is genuine today when everything can be sold with a smile, and people do everything for money or for the opportunity to get time on TV.

To be true and genuine, and be who we are, will give many positive effects. It strengthens our self-esteem and make us safer and gives us inner security. Life becomes happier because the odds for us to succeed increases.

To be living the life as we are and be genuine means to follow our nature and do the things that brings joy. To listen to our inner voice and feeling and speak from the heart. This also means that when you respect yourself you can also respect others. If you have knowledge of your limits, and can say no when you want to, you can also respect other people when they say no. If you live the way you are there is no reason to enlarge or reduce yourself.

I think that we have to develop the genuine aspects in our life. I believe in human nature and believe that most humans are good people if they are given a chance. I hope that the way of life we live today, where many people play a role and are running towards something that we don't know what it is, is a transient period.