To do what is right creates a friction with doing what is easy.
We all grow up learning how to be likeable and provoke favourable reactions in our environment. It’s survival instinct. In youth we are dependent and need the approval of the people who sustain us.
Then we grow up. We start forming our own values (or lack thereof), preferences and desires. We start experiencing the friction between who we are and the external world. It’s the normal process of growing up.
What we don’t know, in this tradeoff to win our peers’ approval, is how much we are giving up of ourself. How much we are trading, diminuishing, giving up, to forge ourself in the polished currency that can thrive in the world.
Then comes the reckoning. Which is not just becoming an adult. It’s looking back at our life, after having lived half of it. This is when you can – and will not escape – your own judgement of the life you lived so far. For a man it essentially drills down to the following:
Am I proud of who I am?
Needless to say, for those who traded their core essence for the polished world-pearl, most of the times the answer is no. And yes, we know you can’t admit it. Admitting it requires acknowledging that 20+ years of your life were wasted, because, what is the point of everything we have done so far, as we approach slowly but inesorably, to our final destination, when we will be just a speck of dust, and the memory of us will slowly fade in those who once loved us, as they will reach as well their destination.
But here is the thing: to stop and stand still, is the only way to withstand the truth of the answer:
Am I proud of who I am?