Do Social Standards Really Exist?

Have you ever wondered why you were put on this earth? What your purpose in life is? It can’t be going to school and working all your life can it?

As I ponder on all these life long, unanswerable questions, I seem to be forgetting one thing: “What is your heart telling you?”. We seem to forget to ask ourselves these questions at different times in our lives because we are too consumed at doing the task at hand and abiding by social standards.

Depending on where you live, social standards can be very different. This is the story of a 24 year old female who went to school for a good 17 years of her short life which includes elementary school, high school, a college diploma and a University Certificate. She currently works 37.5 hours per week for the Federal Government and gets paid a very good amount of money as a Business Analyst. Did she ever anticipate doing this in her life? No! Now the question is: “What does she want to do when she grows up?”

The beginning

• You’re born, your innocent, you have the world at your feet
• You go to school

There’s no question about that from the get-go.

She sits in a class-room full of 5 year-olds competing for the teacher’s attention. She’s read a story every day, she colors, brings home her achievements to be posted on the fridge for everyone to admire. She’s proud, the world is at feet. She can do anything. She wants to be a teacher or a cashier at a supermarket. Her little mind isn’t thinking about social standards or what is expected of her… she will become the best and she’ll be rich!

“Someday dad, I’ll be able to give you the life you always wanted because I’ll be rich!!” she says. Never really understanding what right really meant. Does rich mean lots of money or does being rich mean being happy?

School gets a little harder, she goes through the bullying but still she has great hope for the future.

Entrance into an adult too soon

Then comes high-school where she has to deal with mean kids, raging hormones and so many temptations.

At this point, she still doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up, but yet there’s this un-talked about social pressure coming from all around (parents, guidance counsellors, friends, family, etc.) to be the best she can be and make lots of money. Like many of her peers, she is then forced to take classes which will benefit her future, whatever that is, because that’s what the “right thing to do” is. She get through, what everybody says is the “best years of her life” and then she gets called into the Guidance Counsellors office where they sit her down with a whole bunch of college and university brochures expecting her to know, at 17, what she want to do for the rest of her life. They administer personality tests to best fit her career aspirations with the type of person the test says she is and what her parents want for her. Some of her peers get lucky and go for what they have always wanted to be. She’ll realize later that it has nothing to do with luck.