The Life You Want — 001
Breaking the pyramid scheme of parental dreams
Hey you,
Welcome to the first edition of The Life You Want.
Every edition will challenge what you’ve heard. Enough yapping, lets jump in.
To all those people who were forced to live their parents’ dreams, are you happy?
You had ambitions and goals and visions of your own, but you had to throw it all away in the name of family, honour, respect, stability and supposed love.
But what you gave up will haunt you.
It manifests in the quiet moments when you see others living authentically:
In the resentment that builds slowly over years
In the quiet moments when you are devoid of stimulation
In the midlife crisis that strikes when you realise you've been living someone else's life
The ghost of your unlived dreams doesn't disappear—it transforms into regret, bitterness, and a profound sense of loss.
You gave up an opportunity to live life on your terms, all for supposed familial love.
But here's the uncomfortable truth: genuine love doesn't demand such sacrifices.
Real Love is unconditional.
Real love means celebrating your unique path, even when it's different from what they envisioned.
It means being your safety net when you fall, not the force that prevents you from trying.
Your family should support you through everything, that is familial love.
Now, why do they want you to live that life?
The answer reveals fundamental truths about human nature, fear, and the ways we unconsciously perpetuate our own suffering.
It is from one of two reasons:
They are afraid of letting you make your own choices and decisions.
They still think of you as a kid who needs protection from the cruel world. So they make your choices for you. This is just helicopter parenting and not allowing the child to grow into an adult. Their love becomes a prison built from good intentions.Their fear is magnified by societal messages about success and failure, about the "right" way to live.They didn’t get to live out their lives on their terms, so they want you to live their lives.
They want to live their dream, which they didn’t have the courage to live out, through you. They think of you as an extension of them and not as another human being capable of conscious choice. They didn’t live life for themself, so now they want you to live their lives. They're asking you to complete them, to be the person they never had the courage to become. In doing so, they deny your separate existence, your unique potential, your right to be fully human.
The second reason is the more common one and the main reason these cycles exist. If you don’t live out your life for yourself, you will force your kids to live out your life for you. And then their kids will be forced to and so on…
This creates what we might call "existential debt"—each generation owing their life to the previous one, no one ever truly free to exist for themselves.
It's like a pyramid scheme of dreams where no one ever gets to cash out.
If you don’t live life for yourself, who will?
Your son? Your daughter?
They are innocent souls deserving of freedom, not your unfulfilled dreams.
The bravest and best thing you can do is live your life the way you want to.
Not just for yourself, but for your future bloodline.
Start living the life you want. Not the life they want you to live.
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-RT x
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Until next time:)