how to disappoint your parents

sometime around February 2024, i hit a breaking point.

it had been 6 months of my B.Ed program (teacher’s college), & i was being eaten alive by the fact that my whole life felt like a lie.

i was uninterested in every class i went to, surrounded by people who were nothing like me, & getting lessons from people whose lives i did not want.

everything felt like a waste of time.

at that point, i already knew what i really wanted in life — to create stuff like this for a living — & each day that i wasn’t moving towards that goal felt like a rejection of everything i stood for.

for the first time in my life, i felt angry all the time.

i wasn’t me.

truthfully, i don’t know what the final straw was, but after getting home from class one day, i had enough.

with only 1 year left of my 6-year university education, i called my parents & told them i was going to drop out.

their reactions were as expected.

‘what the fuck are you thinking?’

i couldn’t even blame them.

they both immigrated to Canada in the 80s with nothing but PTSD & debt, saved up money for years to afford me this opportunity that neither of them had, & there i was, throwing it all away after coming so close to the finish line.

it was like a slap in the face for them.

but here’s the thing:

as much as part of me wishes i had stayed true to my word & stopped living that lie right then & there — i couldn’t.

after a few days, i talked myself out of it & held on (barely) for another year.

i felt i owed it to them.

spring 2025 was graduation, which i went to just so they could see me walk across the stage that they never had the privilege to walk on themselves.

i could tell, it was one of the proudest moments of their lives.

& i felt nothing.

if anything, i was angry again.

i had just spent the better part of a decade on a path that, truthfully, i would not have chosen for myself today.

but i’m not writing this to complain.

i’m writing this to share a valuable lesson that i’m grateful to have learned at a relatively young age:

the moment when the world approved of me most (getting my degree) was the moment i was unhappier than ever.

the reason for it?

i was living the life i was supposed to want. not the life i actually wanted.

there’s an idea i heard from the French philosopher, René Girard, that applies here:

mimetic desires.

simply put, Girard suggests that we don’t always choose what we want. rather, we instinctively want things because other people want them too.

research into things like mirror neurons, desire formation, & imitation have supported this theory with empirical evidence, & there are examples of it all over the place:

• a kid doesn’t care about a toy until another kid picks it up

• your friend tells you about a restaurant they loved, & now you want to go

• your sibling got a high paying job, & now you want to earn more money

point is, our brains basically go ‘other people want this, therefore i should too.’

in most situations, i don’t think this is a bad thing — functional societies need people to follow the same general rules, & mimetic desires help make that possible.

the problem arises when it seeps into every single aspect of our lives.

case in point: my 6ish years of university.

all that time i spent angry about ‘living a lie’ is time i will not get back.

so all i can do is learn from it.

in recent months, i’ve been pretty ruthless about how i choose to spend my time.

the decision-making razor i’ve been using the most is:

if i knew i was gonna die in 2 weeks, would i still spend my time doing this?

(i swap out ‘weeks’ for days, months, years, etc. — whatever works best for the situation)

when you view everything through that lens, it forces you to strip away the mimetic desires & look at what you want your life to be.

all of a sudden, i found myself making decisions that i was previously too scared to make:

• i decided to go ‘all in’ on this online business/creation stuff

• i said no to the things i used to feel guilty saying no to

• i got rid of my iPhone & switched to a flip phone

the results have been so profound that i’m willing to say, in absolute terms:

your life will be better if you choose authenticity over approval.

‘it is your job to disappoint as many people as it takes to avoid disappointing yourself.’

~Glennon Doyle

do it for you.

some things i learned

1. every misinterpretation is a confession

   

2. your partner’s current life is your future life

   ‘when you select a partner, whether you realize it or not, you are choosing a whole lifestyle, & not just the person.

   
   you’re choosing their sleep schedule, their money habits, their stress levels, their family drama, their levels of cleanliness, their work ethic, their coping mechanisms.

   all of these things will be a baseline of your daily life.

   
   if their normal is doom scrolling till 2 a.m., avoiding all conflict, impulse spending & never exercising, guess what? you’re signing up to live in that ecosystem.

   
   love does not cancel out people’s flaws.

   in fact, love just makes you tolerate them for longer.

   most people obsess over ‘do we have romantic chemistry?’

   & they completely skip ‘can i live with this person’s version of Tuesday every week for the next 10 years?’

   
   the hard truth is, you don’t fix somebody’s lifestyle from the inside.

   you either accept the package as they are or you walk.’

   ~ Mark Manson

3. a personal lesson
   most people don’t actually know what they want, which is why they rely on other people & algorithms to tell them. when i decided to take control of my life, i felt a distinct feeling of overwhelm, confusion, & worry, that was quickly replaced with a feeling of peace.
   
   if nobody is there to tell you how to spend your time, that means it’s all up to you to figure out what you want your days to look like from scratch.
   
   it’s scary at first — & that’s why people don’t do it — but it’s worth it.

cool stuff i found

1. a big ass calendar
   i finally got the calendar i’ve been looking for. it’s a massive 4x3’ dry-erase calendar that shows every day of the year at the same time. this is a big deal for me — it’s hard to overstate how important keeping track of your time is.

   

   ‘show me your calendar, & i’ll show you who you really are.’ ~ Peter Drucker

2. a card game my family loves
   since discovering it in December, Flip7 has been a staple at family events. it’s easy to learn, small enough to take places, & finds the right balance between skill & luck. give it a shot!

   

3. an article that will change your life
   as always, Gurwinder Bhogal didn’t miss with his article, ‘how social media shortens your life.’ i find myself rereading it often, & i think you might too. here’s one of many hard-hitting ideas i took from it:
   
   ‘sometimes an experience can seem brief in the moment but long in memory, & vice versa. a classic example is the ‘holiday paradox’: while on vacation, time speeds by because you’re so overwhelmed by new experiences that you don’t keep track of time. but when you return from your vacation, it suddenly feels longer in retrospect, because you made many strong memories, & each adds depth to the past.
   

   …a sinister thing about social media is that it speeds up your time both in the moment & in retrospect. it does this by simultaneously impairing your awareness of the present & your memory of the past.’

that’s all for this week!

i’m feeling 90% better after my flu last week, & i’ve been itching to ramp things up again.

if you couldn’t tell from what i wrote here today, the idea of how i spend my time has been on my mind a lot recently.

as of a few days ago, i’ve taken another big step away from my — i’ll call a spade a spade here — addiction to learning things online.

i’m living an algorithm-free life now.

the early results are exactly what i had hoped for, & it hasn’t been anywhere near as challenging as i expected.

in fact, it’s actually made my life easier.

i’ll write more about it when i feel more qualified to do so, but until then, i’d encourage you to give this protocol a try for a week:

1. log out + delete all social media apps

2. block yourself from using YouTube & streaming services unless you’re looking for a specific video/show that you can search for

3. realize how much of your life an algorithm has decided what you do

& then, perhaps most importantly:

4. fill that time with things that you’ll be glad you did

after working my way up to this point over years of effort, it’s hard to imagine myself ever going back.

go make yourself proud this week!

~ liam (:

PS - i’m finally opening up a few more spots to work with me 1 on 1 so you can find clarity & build habits that create a life you love. fill out this free survey to see if you’d be a good fit!