Should

How much do you do because you feel like you should?

An unnecessary amount.

This coincides with the feeling of guilt stemming from obligations. I often feel like the things you do are a result of the social pressure you feel from the people around you. 

THE MORE TIME I SPEND ALONE, THE LESS I FEEL I SHOULD DO.

When you surround yourself with people 24/7, you lose track of what you actually want for yourself.

You are a social creature. You want to be around people. You want people to like you. Social belonging is one of the top tiers on the hierarchy of needs. You quite literally need to belong to achieve happiness.

But what if your need for belonging inhibits your need for self-actualization?

I almost feel like these 2 needs are inverses of each other.

The more time I spend alone, the more I feel like I am discovering what I want. But with this, I lose my sense of social belonging. I feel like an outsider and become unhappy as a result. 

The more time I spend with others, the more I feel like I am connecting and I become happy because I feel like I belong. But as a result, I lose track of what I really want and need for myself. The influence others have on me becomes stronger than the wants and needs I have for myself.

It is a strange dichotomy.

I struggle to find balance.

When I look to balance this teeter totter I often find myself leaning toward being alone. Sometimes the social pressure I feel to live a certain way is too overwhelming. There are so many outside influences with strong opinions of what I should or shouldn’t do.

Even if these influences don’t realize it, they have a huge impact on how I live my life. They might not try to explain why I should do something or shouldn’t do something, but they do.

It is so common.

PEOPLE ARE UNAWARE OF THE STRENGTH OF THEIR INFLUENCE.

I might act like I can’t be influenced, but I am. It is unavoidable. 

You are a product of your environment.

It is just like marketing. Do you ever see the same commercial for insurance time and time again and think to yourself how annoying it is? Or maybe you don’t even acknowledge it or process it right away. Either way, when it comes time for you to choose an insurance policy, this commercial that you have unconsciously been processing for quite some time pops into your head. 

It is called brand recall.

You may not remember it automatically, but when reminded, it is the first thing that comes to your mind.

You become an unconscious consumer of information. Although you might not consciously process it, the information is being stored in your mind. That is why it is impossible to be influenced by those around you unless you are completely aware of what is happening.

I try to avoid situations where I am unconsciously being influenced.

I know when the time comes for me to make a crucial decision, these influences I was unaware of before will make themselves known.

That is why you always feel like you should? Past experiences that have been stored in your mind.

I HAVE TRIED TO START BREAKING DOWN WHY I FEEL LIKE I SHOULD.

Majority of the time, it comes from a belief that has been ingrained in my head since I was a kid.

It is not something that I chose to feel for myself, it is something that somebody else taught me I should feel.

SOCIAL PRESSURE IS A SCARY THING.

The scariest part about it is that if you don’t follow it, you are in the minority. People look at you differently, they tell you things to try to sway you, they make you feel inferior. You have to fight that influence so hard.

Start fighting the urge to do things because you feel like you should.

Really think hard and break it down before you make a decision.

Figure out why you feel this way, then decide what to do.

The more I have done this, the happier I am with the decisions I make.

Determine which is more important: your need to belong, or your need to be the best version of yourself.

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Thank you for reading!

My goal is to inspire self-improvement in others through my personal stories and experiences.

This is The Exploration.