Following Your Personal Truth
For much of my life, my actions and decisions have been guided by external forces — traditional ideas of success, happiness, femininity.
And for the past year, I’ve been digging my heels into investigating what I actually want my guiding forces to be.
I grew up Christian, which had clear ideals of right and wrong. And when I shrugged that completely in college, I became guided by balancing being productive and having fun. My year of traveling incited a desire to simply experience and explore life. And then my subsequent time back home meant connecting with family and friends and an inherent sense of responsibility to those I love.
The past year has been focused on what a sustainable future looks like. As I near 30, questions like: “What does it mean to be an adult?” and “What is a life worth living?” dominate my consciousness.
Do I need to find a career, get married, buy a house, have kids? This the path clearly presented to me by society and culture. As I dig into each one, I see its appeal. Building a career is purpose. Getting married is support. Having a home is comfort. Having kids is fulfillment. And unlike my young self, I’m much less defiant of these traditional pathways.
But beyond these big decisions, the more regular decisions in life are small, seemingly insignificant. I’m tired — do I push myself to go to yoga or simply allow myself to rest? I say I want to read more, but my brain just wants to turn off and watch TV — which do I choose? Do I invest my limited free time in friends or my boyfriend? Do I eat the doughnut that’ll make me feel good in the short-term but crappy in the long-term?
As I confront such questions on a daily basis, I realize more and more that most decisions aren’t guided by a moral spectrum of right and wrong. So instead of asking myself what the right thing to do is, I ask myself: Which one feels true? An argument could be made for either side of every predicament. So for me, it’s less so about making the “right decision” and more so about making the decision I can live with.
For those who have spent time with me over the past year, I’ve been a broken record of, “It’s not so much about right and wrong as benefits and sacrifices.”
Is it wrong to take a few days to call your mom back? To take off a week from working out because you’re burnt out? To go out tonight even though you have work in the morning? In my opinion, it’s more so a question of: Are you willing to own the consequences of that decision?
I’ve lived most of my life feeling guilty and shameful for not being a perfect person. Which is something I only realized with a deep clarity a matter of months ago with the help of a therapist.
I so desperately want to be the person who works out every day, eats perfectly, is fun to be around, has a great sense of humor, has lots of interesting hobbies, doesn’t take myself seriously, is a great host, remembers people’s birthdays, etc.
But in order to even come close to that person, I drive myself insane and into a pit of misery and depression over not being the person I believe I need to be to be lovable/likeable.
Side note: Why is a lack of self-love is so prevalent in our society? As though love is something to be earned.
But I digress…
Studies have revealed the pervasiveness of confirmation bias — we seek sources, people, ideas, and situations to confirm what we already believe.
I consider this the desire to seek one’s truth: to sculpt a life that makes sense according to one’s experiences/beliefs/ideals. Of course, only surrounding oneself with affirmation is problematic (a la the 2016 presidential campaign), but at the same time, studies show that even dissent tends to push us further into our views (facts are relative if they don’t align with our truth).
In my life, I’ve found personal experience to be the only factor in truly shifting my internal compass. Because if something doesn’t feel true, no matter how nice it sounds, it fails to truly resonate.
It’s like trying to take on a lifestyle change without your heart being in it (AKA most new year’s resolutions). It tends to break down within a few weeks. Because self-will not backed up by true desire is pretty miserable and usually unsustainable.
I’m moving in with my boyfriend after 5 months of dating, and the feedback has ranged from support to concern, and although there’s value in both, neither has swayed our decision. Our hearts are committed to the idea. When we talk about whether it’s the right decision, my boyfriend comments, “I guess it’ll depend on the outcome.” But then again, even if we break up halfway through our lease, I don’t believe that pushes our decision into the category of “wrong.”
Life is unpredictable, and any sense of certainty is an illusion. There’s no certainty that any of us are going to wake up tomorrow. So I have no interest in holding off on to what feels true out of fear of a negative outcome.
Now, maybe we will break up, and it’ll be terrible, and I’ll decide I don’t want to live with a partner again till we’ve been together longer. That decision won’t be more right or wrong than moving in quickly; it’ll simply represent a shifting truth in my life.
Now maybe you find none of this resonates with you, feeling as though life is more clear-cut, black and white than how I’ve presented it. And you know what? That’s okay. Because that’s your truth, and I wouldn’t want you to follow anything else.
For more existential ramblings, you can check out my blog.
