You don’t have to.
Anything really. No matter what your friends say, what your family says, you’re not obligated to live your life in a way which is not comfortable for you. Or put yourself into situations you dislike just to please other’s expectations.
Do it your way. Do your best to be a good person of course (according to whichever moral standard you hold). But do it your way.
The word “No” is such a life-changer and it’s definitely something I learned to apply only recently. I grew up being told to be obedient. Parents demanded it and school enforced it. It made me into a people pleaser and it sucked having to do things that I did not enjoy simply because it was what was expected of me.
I’m still struggling with No but I’ve been trying everyday to keep saying No to things I don’t particularly like.
It took me 30 years to learn I’ve CPTSD.
But what concrete self-care tips have you derived from that?
Fake it till you make it is a sucessfull postponement to existential questions.
Isnt that problematic for your authenticity tho?
No one is genuinely authentic. Maybe a few people who are incapable of doing otherwise due to issues.
Sometimes I’m not even authentic to myself. I can be different people from one day to the next. Generally it’s an attempt to be better followed by reversion to mean, but sometimes not.
That’s a later problem
