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Abstract

at this point, but I’m still learning how the echoes of the break are affecting me.</p><p id="4f8e">My father’s career for the bulk of my life was as a middle school teacher. Naturally, that shaped his views of what success looks like. He had a lot of ambitions for me, and I’m sure he would’ve wanted me to be giving presentations and webinars, standing up in front of people and teaching them how to be better grant writers.</p><p id="9176">Ultimately, that’s not what I want. Unfortunately, it took me this long to realize that. Since I made it to college and began coming into my own as a functional adult, my father had been conditioning me to want his idea of success. It may not have been a conscious thing — heck, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a conscious effort — but my father has strong opinions and a way with words when he’s speaking, so I don’t doubt that the conditioning was there.</p><p id="344a">So, here I am, a man in my mid-30s wrestling with the success I want versus the success I was conditioned to believe that I wanted. I thought that success meant a very particular set of things and that I wasn’t successful, or at least not as successful, as I <i>should </i>be. Taking a step back and looking at it critically, I think I’m actually much more successful than I thought I was.</p><p id="c49e">Whether they mean to or not, our parents condition us to believe certain things about the world. What people are like. How the world works. What success looks like. These things form the fundamentals of what we grow into as adults and shape how we see the world and interact with other people.</p><p id="043a">These things are not permanent, though. Part of growing up and becoming an adult is learning that things are infinitely more complicated than any of us was led to believe and that the world doesn’t operate the way our parents said it does. As adults, we have to deal with the things we were taught and reckon them with the way things are.</p><p id="5a02">Part of that reckoning is learning that what our parents want for us and what we want for ourselves are often very different things. As such, many people reach a point in their lives where they are forced to grieve the lives that we thought we wanted, that we were conditioned to think that we wanted, because we recognize that the lives we have and the lives we thought we wanted are very, very different.</p><p id="f4fc">We are all our own people, and the things that others want and expect of us are often different from the things that we want and expect of ourselves. Part of growing up and becoming an adult is recognizing that and accepting that other people do not get a say in how we define ourselves. Whether that means things like how we present ourselves or things like what success is to us, we get to define who we are and what we think.</p><p id="9960">It’s only been a few days since that webinar, so my understanding of this is still fresh. I don’t know what the outcome will be for me, but I hope it helps me work through some of my insecurities about success and whether I am or will ever be successful.</p><p id="9782">I think the understanding that I can define my success and that I am not bound by what others think is something we all need to come to eventually. I’m sure some people who are older and wiser than me would read this and go “well of course!” I

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t is a common trope: the idea that as we get older, we stop caring what other people think of us.</p><p id="6e8f">I think that this is just the beginning of that understanding for me, and I hope that this helps someone else reach that understanding as well. It’s okay to not have the life you thought you should, and it’s okay to grieve that. Whether that life is one you wanted for yourself or one that you were conditioned to believe that you wanted, part of our personal growth is recognizing that we can’t always get what we want or what others want for us.</p><p id="b886">However, I think that the song is right, so I’ll finish out the refrain: if we try, sometimes we get what we need.</p><p id="e1c9">If you liked this, please subscribe to my publication, Thing a Day. I publish something every day on a variety of topics, so you never know what you’re going to see!</p><div id="c18d" class="link-block"> <a href="https://medium.com/thing-a-day"> <div> <div> <h2>Thing a Day</h2> <div><h3>In which I write one thing each day.</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*eDMwsybTKAuurmHy6-tfoA.png)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><p id="d4a6">Here are some other things I’ve written:</p><div id="ac9f" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/what-do-any-of-us-want-anymore-136881cbcf1c"> <div> <div> <h2>What Do Any of Us Want Anymore?</h2> <div><h3>Sometimes, life feels like an endless cycle of nothing.</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*BXZNhE5tiFhjScbz)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="cb71" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/what-i-do-for-a-living-a-glimpse-into-nonprofit-fundraising-ac04f58b8d73"> <div> <div> <h2>What I Do For a Living: A Glimpse Into Nonprofit Fundraising</h2> <div><h3>In which I beg people for money via formal written request.</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*v1O04DuGAICWpN-g)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="61f1" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/sins-of-the-father-my-screwy-tumultuous-relationship-with-my-dad-e942b2e53453"> <div> <div> <h2>Sins of the Father: My Screwy, Tumultuous Relationship With My Dad</h2> <div><h3>Every year, Father’s Day sucks a little less.</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*p302ZaMOdcWQNxWb)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

Grieving the Lives We Thought We Wanted

On expectations, reality, and what we were conditioned to believe.

Recently, I was struggling with a notion of where I felt I should be versus where I actually am in my life right now. It was kicked off by a webinar I sat through at the encouragement of my bosses. It was a basic-level course taught by someone younger, who had less experience, and was (probably) more successful than I was.

This webinar stirred up a bunch of feelings for me and played on one of my neuroses: that I will never have enough. I could’ve taught that class, I thought. I could be more successful than I am, have more than I do, be more, have more, be better. It made me really depressed, the thought of what I could’ve been if I would just apply myself more.

Naturally, I posted about it on social media, and my friends, being supportive, helped me think it through. Two different people came to the same conclusion and politely nudged me toward it: do I even want to be teaching webinars? Do I want the things that the presenter has — a contracting job, a position in our professional organization, presenting gigs — or do I just think I want those things?

My father wanted a lot for me growing up, but most of all, he wanted me to survive. Having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was twelve, my psychiatrist at the time tried to temper my parents’ expectations. To that end, he made it clear that it was not a sure thing that I would be able to finish my schooling and that I may have to live with them well into adulthood with them supporting me.

To cut a long story short, I have a house, a car, a spouse, and a career that I’ve been working at for over a decade at this point. To say I have succeeded beyond my parents’ wildest dreams is…well, a fairly good way to put it, honestly. That said, when I graduated high school, then graduated college with a clear career plan, I think my father decided that my success was his success and started impressing that on me.

The thing is, my father and I couldn’t be much more different. He’s a massive extrovert, I’m an introvert to the point of being (almost) a misanthrope. I’m a writer, he’s a speaker. He’s got boundless energy, I can barely cook dinner some nights. We are very different and have very different ideas of what it means to be a person.

As a result, the success that my father wanted for me was not the success that I wanted for myself. Being a good son, I did my best to follow his advice up until the point where we had our falling out, at which point I grieved the loss of my relationship with my father for quite a while.

However, with the loss of the relationship came the loss of his idea of what my success looks like. His influence on me and my ideas and thoughts has been broken for nearly five years at this point, but I’m still learning how the echoes of the break are affecting me.

My father’s career for the bulk of my life was as a middle school teacher. Naturally, that shaped his views of what success looks like. He had a lot of ambitions for me, and I’m sure he would’ve wanted me to be giving presentations and webinars, standing up in front of people and teaching them how to be better grant writers.

Ultimately, that’s not what I want. Unfortunately, it took me this long to realize that. Since I made it to college and began coming into my own as a functional adult, my father had been conditioning me to want his idea of success. It may not have been a conscious thing — heck, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a conscious effort — but my father has strong opinions and a way with words when he’s speaking, so I don’t doubt that the conditioning was there.

So, here I am, a man in my mid-30s wrestling with the success I want versus the success I was conditioned to believe that I wanted. I thought that success meant a very particular set of things and that I wasn’t successful, or at least not as successful, as I should be. Taking a step back and looking at it critically, I think I’m actually much more successful than I thought I was.

Whether they mean to or not, our parents condition us to believe certain things about the world. What people are like. How the world works. What success looks like. These things form the fundamentals of what we grow into as adults and shape how we see the world and interact with other people.

These things are not permanent, though. Part of growing up and becoming an adult is learning that things are infinitely more complicated than any of us was led to believe and that the world doesn’t operate the way our parents said it does. As adults, we have to deal with the things we were taught and reckon them with the way things are.

Part of that reckoning is learning that what our parents want for us and what we want for ourselves are often very different things. As such, many people reach a point in their lives where they are forced to grieve the lives that we thought we wanted, that we were conditioned to think that we wanted, because we recognize that the lives we have and the lives we thought we wanted are very, very different.

We are all our own people, and the things that others want and expect of us are often different from the things that we want and expect of ourselves. Part of growing up and becoming an adult is recognizing that and accepting that other people do not get a say in how we define ourselves. Whether that means things like how we present ourselves or things like what success is to us, we get to define who we are and what we think.

It’s only been a few days since that webinar, so my understanding of this is still fresh. I don’t know what the outcome will be for me, but I hope it helps me work through some of my insecurities about success and whether I am or will ever be successful.

I think the understanding that I can define my success and that I am not bound by what others think is something we all need to come to eventually. I’m sure some people who are older and wiser than me would read this and go “well of course!” It is a common trope: the idea that as we get older, we stop caring what other people think of us.

I think that this is just the beginning of that understanding for me, and I hope that this helps someone else reach that understanding as well. It’s okay to not have the life you thought you should, and it’s okay to grieve that. Whether that life is one you wanted for yourself or one that you were conditioned to believe that you wanted, part of our personal growth is recognizing that we can’t always get what we want or what others want for us.

However, I think that the song is right, so I’ll finish out the refrain: if we try, sometimes we get what we need.

If you liked this, please subscribe to my publication, Thing a Day. I publish something every day on a variety of topics, so you never know what you’re going to see!