Am I Living My Own Life or Am I Living Someone Else’s?

Whose Dreams Are You Chasing? Untangling Expectations from Authenticity

Summary

Have I been living authentically, or just trying to live up to others’ expectations? This question often surfaces during significant life transitions—when the foundations we’ve relied on begin to disintegrate. A divorce, a career burnout, an empty nest, or even a spiritual awakening can break the autopilot spell. Suddenly, we’re staring at a life that looks suspiciously like someone else’s. This article helps you untangle internal knowing from external noise. Together, we’ll gently untangle the threads of external influence from the vibrant tapestry of your authentic self, guiding you toward a life that resonates with your deepest truth.

5 Practical Takeaways:

1. Life transitions often awaken the need to reassess who you’re really living for.
2. Emotional discomfort is a powerful compass—follow it, don’t numb it.
3. Authenticity is less about discovering and more about un-layering.
4. Cultural shifts show you’re not alone in your questioning.
5. Small, consistent acts of alignment create real transformation.

The Silent Struggle of Borrowed Expectations

In the quiet moments between heartbeats, a profound question often emerges from the depths of our consciousness: Am I truly living my own life, or am I merely acting out a script written by others? This existential inquiry is not just a philosophical musing, but a deeply personal reckoning that strikes at the core of human experience. It is a question that haunts us during life’s most significant transitions—graduating from college, changing careers, entering or leaving relationships, becoming a parent, or facing midlife.

Authenticity isn’t something you find. It’s what’s left when you strip away everything you were told you should be.

Psychological research supports what many of us intuitively feel. Dr. Jennifer Kunst, in her groundbreaking work on authenticity, argues that we develop “adaptive false selves” as survival mechanisms. These personas protect us but ultimately disconnect us from our genuine essence.

The journey of authenticity is complex, a delicate dance between societal expectations, familial pressures, internalised narratives, and our deepest, most genuine desires. We are born into a web of expectations—familial, cultural, societal—that begin weaving themselves into our sense of self from the moment we take our first breath. These expectations are not inherently malicious; they are the invisible threads of connection that bind us to our communities, our histories, and our collective human experience.

Yet, these same threads can become constraining, transforming from supportive networks into suffocating nets that trap our true selves.

The Anatomy of Borrowed Expectations

Family Scripts and Inherited Dreams

Every family has its narrative—a collective story that defines success, failure, acceptable paths, and forbidden routes. Some families cherish academic achievement, pushing children towards prestigious careers in medicine, law, or engineering. Others prioritise financial stability, discouraging artistic or entrepreneurial pursuits. These family scripts are often well-intentioned, rooted in a desire to protect and provide security.

Take Shirley, a 28-year-old corporate lawyer from a family of attorneys. She excelled academically, followed the prescribed path, and secured a high-paying position at a prestigious firm. From the outside, her life appears perfect—but internally, she feels a growing sense of dissonance. Her passion for environmental conservation and sustainable design remains buried, a quiet whisper drowned out by the thunderous expectations of her family’s legal legacy.

The pain of living someone else’s life is not about the specific path chosen, but about the disconnect between external achievement and internal fulfilment. It’s the subtle ache of knowing that the life you’re living doesn’t genuinely resonate with your core self.

Cultural and Societal Blueprints

Beyond family, broader cultural narratives shape our understanding of a “successful” life. These blueprints vary across societies but often share common themes: linear career progression, marriage by a certain age, homeownership, and having children. In Western individualistic cultures, success is often measured by personal achievement and financial independence. In more collectivist societies, success might be defined by family honour, community contribution, and maintaining social harmony.

These societal blueprints create invisible checkboxes that we unconsciously try to tick. A woman might feel pressured to marry before 30, not because she genuinely desires marriage, but because society has coded singlehood as a form of incompleteness. A man might pursue a corporate career, suppressing his artistic talents, because cultural narratives equate financial stability with masculinity and worth.

The Illusion of the “Supposed To”

“Supposed to” are perhaps the most insidious words in the human vocabulary. They represent a collective hallucination—a set of unwritten rules that we internalise without questioning. You’re supposed to have your life figured out by 25. You’re supposed to have a stable job. You’re supposed to want children. You’re supposed to be happy with a traditional definition of success.

These “supposed to” narratives create a profound sense of cognitive dissonance. They generate internal conflict between our authentic desires and the expectations we’ve absorbed.

Analysing the Borrowed Life

Emotional Indicators

How do we recognise when we’re living a life that isn’t genuinely our own? The body and emotions often speak what the mind struggles to articulate:

• Persistent feelings of emptiness or dissatisfaction
• Chronic stress and anxiety
• A sense of being perpetually exhausted
• Frequent daydreams about alternative life paths
• Feeling like an imposter in your own life
• Difficulty connecting with your deeper emotions
• A sense of being fundamentally misunderstood

These are not just emotional states but signposts pointing towards a profound misalignment between your inner truth and external reality.

The Courage of Self-Examination

Untangling authentic desire from inherited expectations requires radical self-honesty. It demands that we develop what psychologists call “reflective consciousness”—the ability to step back and observe our lives with compassionate detachment.

This process isn’t about rejecting all external influences but about consciously choosing which influences align with our genuine self. It’s a nuanced journey of discernment, not a binary rejection of everything we’ve been taught.

Journaling Prompt: Close your eyes and imagine your ideal day, unencumbered by external expectations. What does it look like? What are you doing? Who are you with? What feelings arise?

Reclaiming Authenticity

Identifying Your Core Values

The path to living an authentic life begins with understanding your fundamental values. These are the principles that, when honored, make you feel alive, purposeful, and genuinely connected to yourself.

Values aren’t surface-level preferences but deep, resonant truths. They might include:

• Creative expression
• Personal growth
• Community connection
• Intellectual exploration
• Environmental stewardship
• Emotional vulnerability
• Independence

Identifying these values requires dedicated introspection. Journaling, meditation, therapy, and honest conversations with trusted friends can help uncover these core truths.

Dismantling Inherited Narratives

Recognising an inherited narrative is the first step to transforming it. This doesn’t mean immediate, dramatic change, but a gradual, intentional realignment.

For instance, if you come from a family that equates success with financial accumulation, but you value experiences and personal growth, you might start by redefining success on your own terms. This could mean prioritising travel, learning, or meaningful work over traditional markers of financial achievement.

Embracing Imperfect Authenticity

Authenticity is not a destination but a continuous process. It’s messy, non-linear, and requires ongoing courage. You’ll make mistakes, face resistance, and experience moments of profound uncertainty.

The key is to approach this journey with self-compassion. Authenticity isn’t about being perfect but about being honest with yourself and others.

The Transformative Power of Living Authentically

When we begin to live from our genuine core, remarkable transformations occur:

• Increased energy and vitality
• Deeper, more meaningful relationships
• Enhanced creativity and problem-solving
• Greater emotional resilience
• A sense of peace that transcends external circumstances

Living authentically doesn’t guarantee an easy life, but it promises a meaningful one. It offers the profound satisfaction of knowing that you are the author of your own story.

A Continuous Dialogue

The question “Am I living my own life?” is not something to be answered once and forgotten. It’s a continuous dialogue, a lifelong conversation with yourself. As you grow, change, and evolve, this question will resurface, inviting deeper levels of self-understanding.

Myth #1: Living your own life is selfish.
Truth: Living your truth frees others to do the same.

Myth #2: If you walk away from success, you’ll regret it.
Truth: True regret often stems from ignoring your inner voice, not following it.

Myth #3: You should be grateful; others have it worse.
Truth: Gratitude and authenticity are not mutually exclusive.

Myth #4: It’s too late to change course.
Truth: Midlife is not the end. It’s the edit point.

Myth #5: If you don’t know exactly what you want, don’t make a move.
Truth: Clarity often comes after the first courageous step, not before.

Final Reflection

When was the last time you asked yourself: Who am I if no one is watching?

If something in you has stirred while reading this, take heart. There is no shame in realising you’ve been living someone else’s dream.

But now you know that your life is not a performance to be judged by external standards, but a unique, unrepeatable expression of your inner truth. This realisation offers an opportunity to realign, to choose, to live more genuinely.

If this article resonated, I invite you to subscribe to my LIFEQUAKE Vignettes weekly updates—weekly stories of bold reconstruction and quiet revelations, written for people just like you. Sign up and join a community of courageous survivors rewriting their stories, one authentic choice at a time.

Because your life deserves to be designed by the truest version of you.

In the end, living your own life is an act of profound self-love—a radical commitment to honouring the unique blueprint of your existence.