Establishing Frameworks

Why do we feel like we have to start deciding who we are at such an early age, like our 20s? When I look around, talk to my friends or be alone with my thoughts for more than 3 minutes all I can see is that we are all trying to put ourselves into very narrow categories. In our conversations, we say things like “I am a …. person” or “No I would never do …., it’s not me”. Why don’t we give ourselves the space that we need to grow? It’s like we wake up and think, “Okay, you have to choose whether or not you are a bitter person or a cheerful one.” 

Mostly I see this attitude about our characteristic treats, such as being an always smiling person or being a person who always has a “stay away from me” face, meaning being either nice or rude, or being a person who gossips or being someone who shames everyone that gossips. I used to think that I shouldn’t gossip or judge people ever. That if I do, I will become this bad person who thinks she is better than everyone. If a friend starts to tell me a story about someone and I go with the flow, I would feel disappointed and think about it before I go to sleep (true story, not an exaggeration). 

However, when I mentioned this to my therapist, she said that everyone gossips, and this is a very humanly act. As long as I don’t hurt people with them, as long as I don’t act on my negative thoughts or use them against someone, there is no harm to just thinking about them or transferring a story to a friend. So, I create a generalization from this specific example. 

For me, we don’t have to stop ourselves from growing or shred ourselves to fit into some category, we just have to create some frameworks that work for us. We need some lines that we wouldn’t cross, it is this simple. To give another example, we can say that from now on we won’t be a person who talks negatively that will upset people all the time. This doesn’t mean that we won’t be sad or hopeless from time to time, it means that we’ll find a balance and won’t act purposely in a way that brings people down. After establishing those frameworks we just have to accept that we most probably will do different things in every different situation. We will be different kinds of people each day and that is okay.

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