Why is it that it's so easy to get used to a life trying to prove yourself and trying to please everyone around you? Sometimes, you don't even notice anymore how less your life has become your own and more a life owned and controlled by others. You can't even remember anymore when your mind stopped being a friend you can depend on and started being just a mere robot operated by others with a virtual remote control.

Every single day, you keep your words, thoughts and actions in check, constantly glancing over your shoulder to make sure no one's watching you with a disapproving look on his/her face. You constantly have to consult with those whose opinions matter before you make a move. It's so hard to make a decision without questioning yourself first what so-and-so will think about this and that. Sometimes, what others think don't even have to be implicitly expressed. You just know whether they like/don't like what you want to do. You're always worrying that you'll end up disappointing someone, even those you hardly even know and aren't particularly close to you. You're so afraid that if you don't do what they expect of you, they'll no longer be there to support you in whatever you choose to do. That they'll be so disappointed, they'll turn their backs on you. That they'll never really forgive you because you can't be who and what they want you to be. Or at the very least, make you feel every single day, in many different ways, how much you've let them down. The ones you care about the most are usually the ones who are best at that.

So, you bust your ass trying not to disappoint them, to the point that in the end, you end up disappointing yourself, you end up despising yourself. Or you end up as nothing more than robots mechanically going through your life as if nothing matters anymore.

Funny how it's so easy for us to say the words "my life", "my business". And yet, how many of us actually live those lives, those businesses as our own? We're all too much social beings to actually own our lives fully. There are always people who have their hands and brains partly driving the wheel. Even when we're grown and capable of taking care of ourselves, we still are never able to take full charge of our lives.

Are we such spineless beings that every decision we make, every step we take, have to carry the seal of approval of those around us? Is this all there is to life? To try to live the life others have laid out for us, or the life that others choose for us? What is the point of having the freedom to choose then, if everything is always left up to what others want for us? If all we're ever going to think about is what others want, what others think is best for us, and never what we want, what we think is best for us?