Mental Health

Here’s How I Defeated Societal Pressures Creatively to Maintain My Sanity

A practical guide to positive change by navigating social norms and expectations with awareness and assertive actions

In the early-90s, through methodical observations, interviews, and surveys, I wrote a manuscript titled “Societal Pressures Are Ruining Our Lives and What We Can Do About Them” as a research artifact for an educative thesis in ethnographic settings. This article includes a summary of the critical points from the manuscript focusing on my personal experience.

This story, while identifying societal pressures, is also an invitation to understand social norms, respect the values of others, and identify and celebrate your uniqueness. You may start seeing remarkable life changes by aligning these values consciously, mindfully, and compassionately.

Metaphorically, a ton of the psychological load you have been carrying for years might disappear if you can defeat the societal pressure you might be unaware of.

For example, you can breathe better and see everything around you brighter. You might taste more joy and even experience euphoric moments. Furthermore, your creativity and productivity might significantly increase.

This story is not intended to be a criticism of any individual, culture, or institution but rather a thought-provoking examination of societal pressures for awareness and practical solutions for reducing them to improve overall well-being.

This text is not intended to dictate a specific set of protocols but to provide fresh perspectives on your mental strengths and weaknesses without judgment. By sharing my struggles and practical solutions, I aim to offer you a starting point for customization to align with your personal goals and needs.

Society places a high value on ideals and expectations, from physical appearance and career success to social connections and happiness. If not addressed promptly, these societal pressures can harm physical and mental health, increasing stress and anxiety.

In this piece, I intend to create awareness of how societal pressures can adversely impact your life and introduce practical solutions for reducing these pressures to improve your health and overall well-being by showing the big picture in plain language without going into granular details.

Depending on various factors, this story might resonate with some and others. However, it is not about being right or wrong in my expectations. It is not a call to action for being a riot or eccentric either. Far from it, it is simply an invitation to look at social norms differently that might positively impact your life.

What do I mean by societal pressure?

I see traditional society as people living in a defined geographical area and sharing a common culture, language, values, and institutions. However, thanks to technology, modern society removed the physical borders and extended the scope of the social concept.

A typical society comprises a complex system of relationships between individuals, groups, and institutions shaped by physical, psychological, cultural, economic, political, and historical factors.

Society provides a conceptual and implied framework for social dynamics and opportunities for people to interact with one another. Communities and, later, more prominent societies have been essential for survival and well-being.

I define societal pressure as the unrealistic expectations and ideals placed on us by implied societal norms and perceptions. These expectations might come from various sources, such as family, friends, colleagues, community members, media, and cultural norms.

Societal pressures can range from expectations about physical appearance and career success to social connections and happiness. These pressures can lead to stress and anxiety, impacting physical and mental health when you feel you can’t meet them.

The problem with societal pressure comes from internalizing expectations that might create self-doubt and lower self-esteem. Furthermore, societal pressure might lead to discrimination in a group setting, adversely impacting disadvantaged people.

Here is a summary of my approach under three headings.

1 — I asked powerful questions.

Out of hundreds of questions, I chose the following three as answering them made the most significant impact in identifying the core issues.

The first important question I asked aimed to understand my realistic obligations to society. Asking this question helped me create healthy boundaries as a responsible, caring, and compliant person for the rights of others.

The second question was about identifying perceptive obligations that constituted the fundamental problem adversely affecting my happiness, health, and overall well-being. This question helped me identify the perceived expectations I created myself without challenging the assumptions.

Then I asked a closed-ended question to validate the findings of the second question. Am I obliged to live to the standards of people who don’t know about my existence in this world? The obvious answer was no, as I explained in the next sections.

2 — Leveraged intellect, intuition, and subconscious mind to find answers and solutions to my questions.

The answer to the first question using my intellect came as compliance with laws and regulations, civic engagement, paying my taxes, giving back to the community within my capabilities, respecting the right of others, and supporting societal diversity.

The answer to the second question from my RAS came as my personal appearance, financial success, perceptive obligations to living the standards of others, an obligation to connect at a large scale, avoidance of my negative thoughts and feelings, and striving for perfection.

The answer to the third question was obvious and intuitive. I assertively said, “No, I was not obliged to live up to the rules and standards of people who don’t know about my existence in this world.”

Based on these insights, I created a plan with multiple action items and executed the plan consistently and persistently for many years. The progress made noticeable effects on my physical and mental health.

3 — Took action consistently and persistently.

In this section, I summarize a few action points to give you an idea of my progress by answering the questions in previous sections.

First, I challenged societal norms and expectations that didn’t align with my values and beliefs. The list was huge. I will summarize the critical points without boring you with details.

I started creating my definition of success and failure. It was great to learn from the successes and failures of others, but they did not define what I needed and wanted in life. For example, becoming creative, productive, successful, connected, and always happy seemed unrealistic.

Then, I redefined the concepts of productivity, wealth, career, achievement, and happiness in my terms. For example, I did not need to become as productive and high-achiever at the same level as multi-billionaires Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, or Jeff Bezos. However, their achievements remained as inspiration sources.

One of the unnecessary societal pressure was being or looking busy at all times since it was valued as a virtue which looked false to me. For example, we do not produce as high achievers if we are not busy. Working on my priorities with intentional awareness and focusing on my progress solved this problem.

Another unnecessary societal pressure was to remain positive and hide negative aspects of life. I found this point unrealistic as the body and mind balance with negative and positives. So, I learned to accept my negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and neutralize them with positives by expressing them, not suppressing them.

Related to this point, saying “yes” to all requests at work, in the family, and community was a big problem. Learning to say “no” politely and assertively produced a sustainable solution for me. The critical point was setting healthy emotional boundaries.

Seeking help and support is usually seen as a weakness or incapability. It is essential to be self-sufficient with our resources, but we all need help and support from each other. Therefore, I stopped feeling intimated to seek support from trusted people when needed.

Another important realization was the perceptual fear of missing out. This perception is created by economic conditions like consumerism for new products and services that allegedly make us happy. For example, I did not need to follow fashion, eat in expensive restaurants, use the latest technology tools, live in an expensive house, or drive a costly car.

Coming from a technology background, my biggest weakness was connecting with many people through technological tools. The biggest culprit creating this norm was social media. When I learned that 99% of connections through social media were meaningless, a large load from my shoulders disappeared.

I did not need to be famous and have millions of followers on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, like celebrities and influencers, to have meaningful connections with others. Therefore, using social media smartly and taking intentional social media fast when needed was a viable solution.

The most important realization of societal pressure for me was the necessity of perfection for a healthy and happy life. Even though it is impossible to achieve perfection as humans, there is a tendency to expect perfection from people by society. I found perfection in my imperfection.

From my observation, one of the most significant societal pressures was unrealistic expectations of people. For example, society places a high value on women's physical appearance, leading to an obsession with looking thin and having flawless bodies, causing body image issues and poor self-esteem.

As a man, when suffering from metabolic issues, I also faced this issue and had to correct it to lower the adverse effects. Instead of striving for idealism and perfection, I set realistic goals and focused on progressing and excelling with a pragmatic approach.

Accepting my weaknesses, limitations, and mistakes as a human, learning to improve them with my resources, and seeking help from trusted people lowered my stress and increased my happiness.

Conclusions and Takeaways

Undoubtedly, humans are tribal creatures. Our limbic system craves relationships and meaningful connections with others. However, the desire to fit in also creates unnecessary stress and anxiety, affecting our lives.

Societal perceptions and pressures can harm our physical and mental health. Nevertheless, with awareness and implementation of practical solutions, we can reduce the adverse effects of societal pressures and improve our health, well-being, and happiness.

Of course, not all societal perceptions are necessarily harmful. However, it’s essential to be aware of the wrong ones and to make sure that they do not impose on us unrealistic obligations that may lead to stress and have a negative impact on our happiness and well-being.

This story's critical actions and takeaways are to timely address societal pressures by challenging our assumptions, identifying the problematic areas, understanding implications, and finding viable solutions with our own resources and support from others.

By setting realistic goals, prioritizing tasks, focusing on progress, practicing self-care, managing stress, setting healthy boundaries, paying attention to the quality of relationships, practicing gratitude, and surrounding ourselves with positive and supportive people, we can lower societal pressure.

I wrote this story as a gift from my heart and soul for those suffering from unnecessary societal pressure like me. I hope my thoughts give you a fresh perspective and add value to your happiness.

If social pressure affects you and consider these points by customizing them as a solution for yourself, I’d love to read about your transformation. So it will be great to visit this story in the next six months and leave your findings to inspire others.

Here is a personal story exemplifying the impact of societal pressure on young people focusing on negative image issues.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

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