Most people out there are somewhat content with their lives. I have issues with control. Actually, I have an issue with other people having control of my life. I prefer to live and let live, though apparently that is not always possible. Every singly social relationship that we establish has some sort of exchange of power. I hate it when others try to have power over me. I also hate co-dependence. That is probably the worst kind of exchange. In co-dependence, we consciously choose to give someone else the power to control us in exchange for the power to control them. It very stupid, but everybody does it at least once in their life. Some poor souls live that way forever.
I was once asked to describe myself during a Psychology course in College. My answer was "free spirited". The professor said: "Really, you have no attachments, no responsibilities?" I said: "Well, maybe I do have those, but I feel that I am meant to be a free spirit." In a calm and sincere voice he said: "That's a very difficult thing to achieve, but I understand perfectly".
From that day on my life changed. I started looking at myself, not the way I thought I was or the way I wanted to be, but how I really was. I thought I knew myself and in one moment, one very simple question, I saw what I truly was. I was not even close to my ideal; I was on the wrong path. Everything that I was doing in my life, all my choices and decisions were taking me farther and farther away from that image of myself that I treasured so much. I was not liberating myself, becoming a "free spirit"… I was chaining myself to the conventions of social norms and structures, trying to be normal, trying to be functional according to someone else's definition of the term. I had to change, but how? It would take years…
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