For many women, modern day life contains very little freedom and autonomy. We have a path laid out for us by other people, who know nothing about who we really are, but expect us to follow this 'one-size-fits-all' lifestyle, regardless. Go to school, attend university, buy a house, get married, have kids, retire, live off a tiny amount of money for the few years you have left to 'enjoy your freedom'.
Here in the UK, the basic state pension is £110.15 a week if single, or less than £66 per week if you are married or in a civil partnership. Students pay massive fees to attend university, forcing them to take out loans and start their adult life, already deeply in debt and owned by the banks. By the time someone retires, about 1% will be financially free. Out of the 99% remaining, most of those will be forced to rely on support from family. Climbing the career ladder, means working many more hours for slightly more income. In the words of Maxwell Maltz, written in 1960, we work 8 hours a day (often more) so we can afford a house to sleep in, so we can sleep 8 hours a night to be ready for work, usually spending hours per week stuck in a traffic jam, or herded like cattle onto a narrow metal tube. How many women had their 'safe' jobs and income snatched away from them during the recent recession? All those years of loyalty to a company, helping to make another person wealthy, only to have their income switched off in a heartbeat.
Who came up with this idea, and why do the vast majority of us thinks it makes sense? We're supposed to be free human beings. We live in a time when we have the technology to connect with people all over the world, and have the entire collective knowledge of humanity at our finger-tips. It's so easy for us to choose our own path and yet so many of us don't. Most of us never question why we should passively accept the life we've been told to live.
Others do question it and realize that this life is not for them, but struggle against the weight of opinion of family and friends. I know from experience how difficult it is to challenge the status quo, and decide to do something different. It's like swimming upstream. Every time you venture your thoughts on this, you're shut down straight away. These are the people who don't have the courage to live the life for them, and your questioning it forces them to look at some things that make them uncomfortable. Rather than do that, it's easier to ridicule and shame you, make you stop talking, and pressure you into living a life that validates their own.
So where does that leave you? You can feel it in your body that this is wrong. Yet everyone around you says differently. If you deal with this long enough, you'll internalize the nay-sayers and shut down your own inner voice as soon as you hear it. This is a betrayal of who you really are, and self betrayal is the most painful one of all. Think of those people who shut you down and pressure you to follow the same path they chose to walk. Are their lives really better, because you're living the way they want you to? And why do they think they have the authority to decide how you should live your life?
You're a free human being. You came here with a special purpose, and if you don't listen to that call, it will eat away at you. The biggest regret most people have on their death beds is that they listened to other people, rather than live a life true to themselves. This is what's waiting for anyone stumbling along on the default life path. It doesn't have to be that way for you, if you give yourself permission to listen to yourself before anyone who is not living the life you want. You can help more people by being an inspiration, than you can by forcing yourself to follow the herd.
Don't waste another year, staring at annual review sheets, clocking in your time card, accepting the few days a year your company allows you to have to do what you want, while promising yourself that 'some day', you'll figure out what you really want, and you'll do it, 'some day', you'll live your life on your own terms. It's not going to happen unless you start now. A year from now, you'll wish you had started today.
Create something that no-one can take away from you, where you can increase your own income without asking for permission, where you can retire when you choose and live on whatever you like, not the pocket money allocated to you by someone else. Create a life that's full of color, adventure, passion and purpose. Create your own unique career, designed around who you really are and the unique purpose you came here to do. Inspire the people around you to do the same.
The world doesn't need more women, stumbling along the same worn path. The world needs heroines who are stepping into their own power, loving themselves fiercely, connecting with who they really are, and living their lives as the fullest expression of that.
For more information on finding your ideal career, visit http://www.tiffanymcevoy.com/
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