By Sara Neumeister - Guest Writer

Embracing Life Beyond Society's Expectations:

I recently turned 30, and for a while now the feeling of society putting expectations on our life, has been bothering me. While I’ve progressed in my healing journey, one of the most important lessons I learned, is to accept myself fully, and not to bend myself because of what society defines as normal. And while I know, that “normal” or what we see as the standard way, comes from most people walking that path, this doesn’t mean, any other path is wrong. And that’s why today I want to talk about expectations.

“By 30, you should have figured your life out!”

I don’t have anything figured out, to be honest. I’m still figuring out myself, getting to know and accept myself, and I’m far from having a plan for my life. There, I said it: I don’t know where I want to be in a month, 6 months, let alone 5 years from now. And that’s perfectly fine. 5-year-plans have their benefits, for sure, and they might be helpful in achieving certain goals. For some people, their life might even turn out exactly the way they planned it to. Other people don’t need a 5-year-plan, as they simply let life happen to them, as I like to say. By that, I mean that some people tend not to plan too much, but simply are fine with whatever is coming their way.

I don’t have any intentions towards criticizing any of those ways to live. As much as I like to be accepted with all the life choices I make, I want to do the same thing for other people. But when talking about the, let’s call it, “normal course of life”, once again this might fit for most people, but not for the once who are differently in any kind of way. For people with mental health issues, or any other chronic / serious health issues, or for the neurodivergent people, or for anyone on their healing journey, it might simply not be possible to even think about their career, marriage, children and so on. People who have to figure out themselves, before they have a chance to figure out life, are often preoccupied by work so much bigger than for example planning a career.

What my environment thinks my life should look like.

To go deeper into what life course is ought to be normal, I’ll talk about my experience and my knowledge, while being aware that some parts are influenced by culture, religion, family beliefs, or simply different parts of the world. There might be differences, regarding what or when something is considered normal, but the principal of something being considered as normal and expected, stands.

We grow up, and start to make heavy decisions at a young age. We decide for what education or study we want to train in at the very young age of 14–18 years. While it is possible to later change the course of one’s professional life, a lot of people still think, it’s better to stick to the path we took as teenagers. In my case, I finished my education (I did an apprenticeship), before I was allowed to drink, to vote or even to sign legal documents. I already worked for 3.5 years when I turned 18. How on earth are we expected to know what our interests are with 20, 40, or 50, as a teenager? Life has so many layers to it, and during the course of life we change, grow, learn, and get wiser. In my opinion, we should define our goals, interests, and way of living new every once in a while.

In our early 20, we are supposed to move out from home, to not become too spoiled by depending on our parents, and we should start dating seriously. By 30, we are expected to live with the partner, we want to start a family with, should have our career lined up, so that we can achieve our career’s high point between 35-45, and people will start to ask about marriage and children. If we want more than one child, we should have the first one before we turn 35 (when female, as for males this really is not important), but for sure should get pregnant before the age of 40. Of course, once there is offspring planed, we are supposed to get married, with a big, white, traditional wedding.

I could go on and on, but I think you get what I’m talking about.

The questions that are really important

Now, let me ask you a few questions:

• What speaks against changing your job or profession according to different life phases, and your own personal experience and growth?

• Why shouldn’t we chase happiness, once we turned a certain age, by sticking to what we’re already doing, instead of fulfilling our dreams?

• Do you want kids?

• Would you prefer you and your spouse are having separate bedrooms, or maybe you don’t even want to live with someone to begin with?

• Is a big, white wedding what you dream of?

• Or maybe you don’t even have one partner, but more than one. Or none. Both is perfectly fine, as long as you ask yourself: What kind of relationship, if any, do I want?

• Have you ever thought about what would do you any good, and what are goals or dreams, simply based on what we think life should look like?

The strength it takes to defend oneself

During the past years, there have been a lot of movements towards breaking these expectations. It doesn’t matter if we talk about gender, or more accurately, the raising acceptance towards any gender in addition to male/female, or about forms of relationships, as in open relationships or polyamory. Or about people who “only” work, to have money to travel again, and spend their time by saving money, until they’re able to fly off to some beautiful part of the world. Self-realization can come in a lot of different shapes and forms, and it’s gaining importance and commonness.

And even though, one’s life choices might be accepted at one point, to get there takes a lot of strength. Always facing these questions, or being judged for not having a full-time job, or deciding against children, or any other situation that might lead to lack of understanding, isn’t easy. It takes strength to stay true to yourself, when having to explain why you chose the way you did. And it takes strength, to not let get those question marks in someone’s eyes, or the open disapproval get to you.

Still, there is nothing more important, than accepting yourself with all that you are, and to stay true to you. I wish for our future that it gets easier for the ones not quite meeting society’s expectations. I really wish, we wouldn’t be supposed to have it all figured out. Therefore, I want to give you a word along the way:

“Unfuckwithable” (adj.) when you’re truly at peace and in touch with yourself, and nothing anyone says or does bothers you, and no negativity or drama can touch you