Hi Lucy – I agree with Anita – reminds me of the Einstein quote: “All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.” In your case, your society includes your parents and sisters and friends who have created some unwritten expectations. You can be the individual that can help change the society in your own small way.

I tell my teenage son not to get married till he’s 42 🙂 As a joke of course, but also to take the pressure off of society’s expectations that he needs to date, marry, have kids, etc.

I think giving yourself time to explore the world, various cultures, religions, people, and even your own wishes for the life you want to live can only help you make better / wiser decisions in the long run. You really don’t need to explain anything to anyone else – follow the direction that your deepest desires lead to.

Good Luck Lucy!

Dear Lucy:

you are welcome. As far as being bored with the routine of work and home, and social life, I have a feeling about it, difficult for me to articulate… some people may think that life is meant to be exciting much of the time, maybe the expectation is such and anything seems boring compared to the expectation. Maybe movies encourage such unrealistic expectations. Even if you follow a very individual route in life and as exciting as it may sound to anyone following a standard route in life, still, often enough you will be bored. There is some adjustment to reality required, making the boring things interesting enough, seeing what there is to see that you are not, looking at what you do every day a bit differently, seeing MORE. There is where the interest is, I think, the realistic interest in life, not in doing something new every moment, climbing Mount Everest or something grandiose, but doing the more regular things differently. If you do the regular things while you practice being more assertive, this is something to learn and practice as you do the routine things. If you tell your friends honestly how you feel when in the past you didn’t- that is something new. It is the personal growth journey through life, I think, that makes life interesting and exciting, not on the long run, the extra special job or friends or places in the world.

anita

Lucy – you’re right, you don’t have to choose between your family and your life – you can have loving relationships and still become your own person. Try taking small steps toward the person you want to become – and they will learn to get to know the person you’re becoming. Good Luck – your life awaits you!