I feel that society feeds off telling you that you don’t have enough of one, or the other of these two things:
- Money
- Looks
Money… Well… More money more problems? We can all go for the rat race, piss off Brenda who sends a few too many “as per my last email” messages, and get that promotion. At the end of the day, that anxiety of ensuring you are heard in every meeting… There is a ceiling to that self actualisation. Or you can just go full gold digger. But let’s facing… always letting the other person win in a fight. That’s going to be demanding!
Society will tell you, that you need to cover those spots. You can’t wear that old t shirt that you love. You can’t wear anything too outside the box (God forbid we stand out from our preformed tribes). We can’t have tattoos and shave our heads… Or can we? I’ve lost track of what is cool and what isn’t now. This endless checking leaves me feeling breathless. I can almost feel the anxiety of being on the podium of social stardom. Waiting to get knocked off by the next fashion blogger who thinks pink fluffy socks are the next big thing.
If we feel that we don’t have the looks, then we sacrifice parts of ourselves until we are on par with the person with good looks. I’ve walked on that balance beam, given away my pride, my dignity and my safety. Until I felt like I wasn’t myself anymore. I had to ctrl-alt-delete after that. It almost felt like tetris. I’d won but I’d lost a line of myself. It took a lot of lost walks and long drives to find myself again. But I did, and now when I get up to that moment, my body freezes (like a spinning wheel on a computer). I just breath and reboot.