Finding your real life by unshackling yourself from your fake life

I've been reading the work of a wonderful motivational blogger, Benny Hsu, who wrote Get A Life That Doesn't Suck.  (Get it free from Benny by joining his mailing list)  He recounts he was living an imaginary life; "From the outside my life may have seemed perfect, but inside I felt anger and sadness. I thought I would never find happiness"

To me Benny was failing to put himself out there, he was instead held prisoner to the fake "great" life that he was trying to maintain.  We all do this, i.e., pretend to have a life whereby other people can be envious of, but instead of garnering envy, we dig our own grave.

My story is not that different.  I grew up with a silver-spoon in my mouth, I felt entitled to a privileged life, graduated from fairly good schools, NYU and Columbia University, worked for the government as a speechwriter, got married to a man who made a 6-figure salary, got a decent-sized diamond ring in the process that received "ohhh" and "ahhhhs" from coworkers; life seemed envious.

There was only one problem, I was miserable.  I felt my life was going no where, my marriage was in shambles; you can't imagine two people more incompatible for each other.  If he was square, I was a circle; if he was an apple, I was a hamburger; if he was right, I was wrong left.  It was a relationship that went against the laws of nature, it simply didn't work.  But it took me four long grueling years to fully accept that.

Why did it take that long?  Besides sentimental reasons, a major factor was because I was afraid of giving up the pretense of my "privileged life" and so refused to see the truth of my sorry state.  I was afraid my friends, my coworkers, even strangers! would think I was a loser, but I didn't realize that I was truly a loser by believing I wouldn't be a loser if I lived this pretense of a life.  I allowed myself to be shackled by the expectations of society.

At the end of it, I was a full-time housewife. I'd been out of the job market for two-years and didn't know what I could do.  I was so afraid of leaving, "what if I couldn't get a job?", "what if I got a sucky job, I could never hold up my head anymore!"

And so I stayed for all the wrong reasons, for selfish reasons, and in the process I hated myself for it, i.e., for doing the wrong thing that inevitably hurt myself and my husband.

But things got so bad that the pain of staying was more than the pain of leaving.  At that point, I truly hit rock bottom, I no longer cared about what happened to me, I only knew I had to leave.  I didn't care if I had to work as a waitress, at Starbucks, at a grocery store, at the gas station, I didn't care if the whole world laughed at me, I had to get out of there.

And so I left, and never looked back.  It was the hardest thing I've ever done! 

Although, I did have a choice to run back home to "mommy and daddy," where I knew I would have a safe haven, and perhaps an easier time rebuilding my life, but I chose not to.  Why?  Because  I wanted to kill once and for all the skeletons in my closest, i.e., all that imaginary pretense that I wanted to live up to.  I knew to unshackle myself of all that garbage, I had to allow myself to hit rock-bottom, to have nothing and nobody; to come face-to-face with the ugly truth of my life, to not be afraid of doing "whatever to takes" to survive and persevere, even if I needed to work at a menial job.  But I would rebuild my life with my own bare hands from scratch!

And so I did; I left, moved to another state, got a job in retail, making near minimum wage, and this is where I am now.  It's been about 6 months since I left, I'm barely making enough to cover my monthly expenses, but I've never felt freer or more in control of my life.  For the first time I'm confronting my adversities; I'm building a new life for myself through sheer determination, and ingenuity.  And I've never felt more confident or a greater sense of self-worth.

Everyone is shackled to some degree by the expectations of society, but the more you are, the more you will suffocate.  You will never be in control of your life because other people are making decisions for you.  It won't be easy, nothing in life worth fighting for is easy, but when you unshackle yourself from the expectations of society, from your friends, from your coworkers, from your parents, from even the stupid expectations you had of your own life, then, will you be truly free.  Only then will you be living your own life.

For all the women out there, or anyone out there that is scared to make that "epic" leap in your life, remember it's never as bad as you think it is.  Trust in yourself and your abilities, you are stronger than you think.  I have created this blog as much for myself as for you because I hope the strength of determination from other people will help you find your own inner strength.