Time for teenage rebellion
Don’t tell me what to do. (Library of Congress)
Mothers are widely presumed to have supernatural knowledge, and who am I to argue with this idea?
That’s why, at a party with cookies laid out on a table (the kid equivalent of an open bar), children will go find their mothers to ask whether they can have one (sometimes with the desired baked good in hand).
If they don’t ask, she’ll know anyway. They need to know where the limits are.
It’s not a bad thing that, as the invisible tether between a child and his mother increases in length, he can still hear her voice in his head and sense her approval (or disapproval) of his choices.
Eventually, we transfer a mother’s watchful eye to our own conscience, trusting ourselves to make decisions based on our values. But sometimes, distortions occur. We forget to give ourselves permission to eat the metaphorical free cookies we encounter. We hesitate to become who we actually are, for fear of disrupting some kind of agreement, forged in childhood, about who we were supposed to be.
Ideally, our parents make room for us to be ourselves, fully expressed and actualized. But even people whose parents are long dead struggle to break out of the expectations, whether explicit or implicit, that were placed upon them. Choices — where to live, how much money to make, what kind of family and career to have, and how we should present ourselves — are run through the filter of what we “should” do. This can make life lonely and unfulfilling. We find ourselves living someone else’s way without consciously realizing it, still trying to be an obedient child.
If this is you, then let the discontent be your guide. Take note of your biggest frustrations and poke around. Like a teenager, you can begin to treat your life like the grand experiment it is. Look for the moments where the sense of obligation lifts and you glimpse a different kind of feeling — a sense of recognition, a thrill of fear, a whisper of possibility. Ask, “what if” and “why not.”
And like a teenager, you may make mistakes and mess stuff up. That’s okay. The stakes may be higher now, but that’s the whole point: Life’s too short to be lived according to someone else’s desires, values, and standards. If you were too '“good” to figure that out as an adolescent, now’s the time.
An important part of adult life is to make a contribution you feel proud of — to leave a legacy that’s meaningful to you. But sometimes that path must take us through unexpected territory. Sometimes our sense of duty or our understanding of our role actually limits the positive impact we can have. It’s not always wrong or bad to quit something, especially it means we can start something new.
Our parents gave us rules for living that were meant to protect us and guide us, and we were often secretly glad about that. Two or three cookies is enough. As we grow, it’s up to us to figure out which rules apply to the life we are building and the person we are becoming. You’re the one who gives yourself permission now. What will you do with it?