By Nick Kossovan
While paying some bills online, three questions suddenly popped into my head. These questions may have manifested themselves because Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are coming up or because I had recently attended a friend’s 60th birthday party, but I am speculating. (I am not comfortable with, and hence not good at, self-analysis.)
- What life did my parents want for me?
- What life did I want for myself?
- What life am I living?
It felt strange that these questions came to mind since I am not usually reflective… I am more of a keep looking forward kind of guy.
What life did my parents want for me?
The expectations my parents had for me, like those of most middle-class Boomers, were both specific to the social norms of the day, which surprisingly are not radically different from today’s social norms, while, on the other hand, imprecise. It went something like this.
- Go to school and get good grades.
- Go to a good University and get a degree.
- Get a “good” job.
- Get married and have kids.
Essentially, it was the blueprint all my Boomer friends were given, with the implied caveat that it should be completed by my late twenties. Once I have completed the above tasks, I presume my parents would have felt their job was done. Mission accomplished!
However, by my mid-thirties, my story was:
- I never took my education seriously and, therefore, never got good grades.
- I was kicked out of a third-rate university because of my grades and, therefore, never did get a degree.
- Despite my job hopping, I had yet to get a “good” job.
- I was neither married nor did I have children.
My parents were better than most. They allowed me to play to my strength at school, which was English, and they were not overly concerned about what the “good” job was as long as I could support myself. For this, I am grateful. Many people I know had parents who would only be happy if they became a lawyer, a doctor, or an engineer.
The desire for our parent’s approval is universal, so often, in our quest for their approval, it feels as if their love is conditional. Yet, for some Freudian reason, we wish to make our parents proud and show them that their sacrifices were not in vain.
Although my parents’ life plan for me was somewhat liberal, it felt restrictive. Their pragmatism was partly a result of their fear of poverty—both grew up with barely enough—and partly from their upbringing, in which marriage and children were sought-after goals. However, the rebellious itch in my psyche caused me to veer away from their plan long before I was a teenager. God knows I tried—I really tried—but I never felt comfortable with complete social conformity. The feeling of being “authentic Nick,” whom I do not think is a bad person—he does not rob banks, he pays his taxes—was not present when I conformed to social norms. Sometimes I think people pleasers have the right idea—go along, to get along.
What life did I want for myself?
I did not know and still do not have a clear life vision. Maybe at one time, I did know, but the voice in my head kept saying, “Nick, that’s not realistic. The Gods choose only a few to live out their dreams.” I had no romantic image of writing award-winning novels from my Polynesian beach-side estate as I sipped rum cocktails made with freshly squeezed fruit juice while surrounded by women named Amanaki, Hahau, Kalauni and Lovai. Despite not knowing what kind of life I wanted, as I entered my thirties, I knew I was not living a life that I was happy with.
I was not the only one. Many people I know drifted through their parents’ plans only to realize, usually while sitting in traffic during their commute to their office job, that what their parents told them they should want was not what they really wanted or even within their reach.
It is a given that parents want what they believe is best for their kids; however, half the time, they do not know what that is. So, they revert to societal norms like an office job, marriage, children, home ownership, and yearly vacations to Punta Cana. However, we are complex individuals. It is unimaginable to expect the 8 billion of us inhabiting this planet to live the same way; geopolitical divides notwithstanding.
When I was 28, I first considered the question: What do I really want for myself? and Am I prepared to put up with the disapproval of people around me to get it?
During the following 25 years, more or less, I kept burning my life down and starting over. The repetition resulted in my becoming addicted to telling myself I was creating “new possibilities.”
What life am I living?
The last 30 years of my life in one long sentence: I left Montreal, moved to Toronto, job hopped, which had me working and living for lengthy stints in Europe, India and the USA, found someone who would put up with me, and we got married in Las Vegas, never had kids, but did buy a townhouse when Toronto’s housing market was affordable and nine years later sold it for a considerable profit and bought outright a condo overlooking Lake Ontario and the CN Tower and dealt with my mid-life crises by buying an ’82 C3 Corvette. Throughout all this and more, I constantly told myself that one day I would get my act together and do what truly gives me a sense of Zenlike peace: Making a living as a writer.
What is to be noted is that, for the most part, my life right now is one that I am living intentionally.
It is not easy to live intentionally. It takes a hefty “I do not give a damn what other people think” attitude to live even slightly different from my parents’ expectations and social norms. I have learned the hard way to put myself first—if it makes me happy and I am not hurting anyone— and to create healthy boundaries.
Regarding my parents—it is just my mother now—they were far more supportive of my life than I expected. My having never asked for their help, and seeing my acquiring a few of life’s consumer trappings, did help. Who cannot respect, even admire, someone who lives, for the most part, on their own terms?
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Nick Kossovan, a self-described connoisseur of human psychology, writes about what’s on his mind from Toronto. You can follow Nick on Twitter and Instagram @NKossovan