There are things about ourselves we rarely think to question. The way we see success. The kind of life we believe we should have. How hard we think we need to work. What makes someone a good parent, partner or friend. How much money is enough. Whether rest needs to be earned. What we believe about relationships, family, happiness, failure, money, our bodies and even ourselves.

They can feel so deeply ours that we assume we chose them.

But how much of who you are did you actually choose?

Long before you were old enough to consciously decide what you believed, you were already learning what life was supposed to look like. You were born into a family that already had its own way of seeing the world. There were beliefs, values, expectations, personalities, behaviours and ways of communicating that existed before you arrived. There were things your family talked about and things they didn't. Emotions that were welcomed and others that were uncomfortable. Ways of behaving that brought approval and others that didn't.

Then came school, friendships, culture, relationships, workplaces and society. Each one added another tiny piece to your understanding of who you were supposed to be.

None of this is about blaming our parents or the people who raised us. They were shaped by their own families, experiences and circumstances too. It's simply part of being human. We learn how to belong before we're old enough to understand that we're learning anything at all.

And because belonging matters, we adapt. We learn when to speak and when to stay quiet. We learn which parts of ourselves are celebrated and which are easier to keep to ourselves. We notice what earns love, attention, praise or acceptance. We learn what a successful life is supposed to look like, and somewhere along the way we begin building one.

The interesting thing is that eventually we stop noticing where all of those ideas came from. They simply become me.

I'm just someone who always puts everyone else first. I've always been a worrier. I'm not very confident. I'm the responsible one. I need to be productive. I'm terrible with money. I don't like confrontation. I'm just not that kind of person.

We repeat these things often enough that they start to feel like facts. But what if some of them aren't?

What if some of what you call your personality is adaptation? What if some of what you believe is inherited? What if some of the things you've spent your life chasing were never particularly important to you in the first place?

I think this is one of the reasons we can reach adulthood with a genuinely good life and still feel that strange sense that something doesn't quite fit. It's not necessarily because we've made bad choices. Quite often, we've made very sensible choices based on everything we understood about ourselves and life at the time.

We studied what seemed sensible. Took opportunities that looked good. Built careers. Created families. Bought homes. Became responsible. Kept going. And then one day, sometimes for no obvious reason at all, we begin to wonder whether the life we've built actually feels like ours.

I know that feeling.

For a long time, my idea of success was tied to the things I could see. A better job. More money. A nice car. A beautiful home. Holidays. Achievement. Moving forward. There was nothing wrong with wanting any of those things. Some of them I still value.

What changed was understanding that I had never really stopped to ask what my definition of a good life was.

When I eventually did, the answers were surprisingly simple. Family, freedom and connection. Eating together. Walking the dog. Being outside. Travelling. Having conversations that matter. Having enough space in my life to actually experience it.

I didn't suddenly become a different person. If anything, I became more myself.

And perhaps that's one of the biggest misconceptions about self-discovery. We think it's about finding some hidden, perfect, authentic version of ourselves. I don't think it is.

I think it's about becoming curious enough to separate what you've acquired from what is actually yours. To question which beliefs still fit and which don't. To understand what matters to you now. What you genuinely enjoy. What you're tolerating simply because you've always tolerated it. What you might choose if you weren't so concerned with what you were supposed to choose.

And I think those questions matter even more in the world we're living in now.

We have more external influence entering our lives than any generation before us. We can see how millions of other people live, what they own, where they travel, what they believe, what they're achieving and what they think we should be doing with our lives. Technology can recommend what we should watch, read, buy and do next.

The outside world has never been louder.

Which makes knowing what is actually yours more important than ever.

Because a fulfilling life isn't necessarily the life that looks the best from the outside. It's the one that feels like yours from the inside.

Maybe you don't need to completely change your life.

Maybe you simply need to understand how much of it you consciously chose, and then give yourself permission to choose again.

Until next Sunday,

Michelle​
​Simplifying Being Human.

P.S. My book, Being Human in a Robotic World: Why Our Humanness Matters More Than Ever, is coming September 30. Pre-order your copy here.​