Have you ever stopped for a while to think about who you are meant to be? A lot of people are literally living under someone else's shadows. Right from the choice of their career, maybe because their parents want them to study a particular course, choice of friendship, choice of lifestyle, etc. Some even trail a particular path simply because they want to fit into a certain societal standards, or to feel belonged. The truth is that you are very different and unique from someone else, and as such, your path is different from their own. When you understand this, you will not be conformed with societal expectations.
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From the moment people are born, the world around them will begin to tell them who they should be. Parents telling you who you are, teachers telling you what you should be, the media showing you a different perspective, and all these look like they are handing you a script of life which you have to follow. Some people even believe what success means from people, and they tie happiness to possession, because people made them to believe so. For years, these expectations will begin to influence your thoughts, and it may derail you from who you really are. This is why you have to shift from who they want you to be, to who you really are.
A friend or mine, while he was in secondary school, his parents had already created a career for him. His parents are barristers, and they own a law chamber. They wanted him to become a lawyer too, so he would take over the law chamber. But not his plans. As a matter of fact, he always fantasized about becoming an artist. He even explained to his parents that he can still manage the law chamber, and would employ capable hands to oversee it. But they insisted that he would study law. Just to please his parents and fulfill their demands, he decided to go to law school. After years of studying and graduating, he kept feeling empty inside, because he is in the profession he did not want.
When he discovered that where he is is not what he wanted to be, he decided to go into an art school, and that was when his life started coming back. At this point, he has completed the school, and owns an art gallery and doing very well. He also placed someone to manage his parents' law chamber, and it is still doing well. He was able to realign his path from who he was to who he was meant to be, and that was when he found purpose and fulfillment. Your life is exclusively your own, so you have to take ownership of it. Just to let you know; you are absolutely responsible for what and how your life turns out to be. Do not live just to fulfill societal expectations, but to fulfill what you are built to be.
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One of the things you need to understand is that trying to fit in is actually very exhausting. It takes an extensive amount of mental strain to live a life different from your own. When you try to enjoy the job that you do not like, or when you try to suppress your interest because you want to fit in, or when you try to force yourself to live up to someone else's expectations, etc, it will constantly drain you. You may even achieve the result in that path, but you may still feel empty on the inside. This is because it does not align with your true value. Imagine someone running a race in someone's track, even if they finish first, it will not be the same thing as running in their own track.
To become who you are meant to be, you have to first discover what matters to you. That is, know your values, your purpose, and your objective in life. If you do not know who you are, it will become easy for anyone to tell you who you are not. When you know what you stand for, it will become difficult to be moved around by the opinions of others. When you stop living to please others or to meet their expectations, and start living to fulfill your purpose, then you will discover true freedom.
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