josefin

A journey

” The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion” -Albert Camus

I once learned as a child that if you work hard enough, you can do anything, be whoever you want to be and fill your life with true happiness. This is my life and I can play it by my rules and only the sky is the limit. Well, that’s what society told me, my family and practically everyone around me. But that’s not how it works.

These past decades has brought us people a big burden to carry. We have to make it. We are the children of the future. We are the ones who are supposed to do what society tells us to do.

People have worked hard through centuries too make a good life for themselves and the development in these richer countries has led to a lot of opportunities just over the past 40 years. When I speak about richer countries a refer to Sweden as an example. Our society is build on routines and safety. We get educated and rated from an early age until we’re old enough to continue studying at a university. We travel the world in one year or get out on the streets to find a job. Then we have this job that is well paid, we’re expected to have a family, a dog and a life assurance. That’s a typical swedish life, except the well paid part, in most of the cases.

I’ve been taught that a well paid job is the key to happiness. And that you’ll only achieve that by good education and a steady life. The voices that I grew up to ” you can do anything you want, be whoever you want to be” slowly fade out as I got a bit older.
I think this generation grew up way to fast and as soon as we could talk or walk this pressure from society and everyone around us started. Money money money.

We get sort of brainwashed very single day of our life, that you’ll only find true happiness in money. And hey we’re all on the pursuit of happiness, I don’t blame anyone for wanting that. I just wish that money wasn’t the head thing in life. I wish that society, families and teachers would teach us that you can find happiness in all sorts of things.

I struggle at this day, trying to live as free as I can. But it’s hard to see the difference between what I really want and what I think I want, and I believe that it’s the biggest achievement for a human on this planet to realise.

Live your dreams, work hard and never give up. Cause at the end, who’s there? You.
I believe that whatever in life that makes your blood rush, is worth doing. Because doing what you like is freedom- and liking what you do is happiness.
I hate to be saying this but, a lot of parents will do anything for their kids except let them be themselves. I wish that all parents could try to understand the situation their kids are in. The pressure, the cravings and the need to make it.To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

What I want to tell everyone is that you are not born for this. No one is holding a gun to your head. It’s a social pressure and expectations, not the law. You can live on a minimum wage salary, you do not need a high paying job. You can, however, only live once, and for me, seeing the world is worth more than a degree that could bring me in a bigger paycheck, material wealth, or pleasing society. Only people who has grown old and regretted not travelling and focused to much on money and material things who have realised too late that there is so much more to living than this.

And did you know that you can do all of this, right now. You could change the entire outcome of your life. So if our lives are really as bad as we say they are, why won’t we take those chances?
So this is my journey towards freedom.

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.- Oscar Wilde