Stopping wanting to conform

I think I'm a bit of a paradox. Somehow I'm a resolute individualist, I've uncompromisingly, though not always as a complete matter of choice (or - unconsciously - was it?) gone the paths less taken, run slightly or fully against the 'should's that bring you all the orthodox things you're supposed to want: Status, money, children, big house, ambition, 'the next thing'. whatever's trendy, any old relationship as long as there is one, and so on. I will not 'make do' to fit in, or risk the total burnout that would inevitably result from the attempt, I simply refuse to do that. And I always knew from a young age that that's how I'd be. I could sense what was for other people, and what was for me. It wasn't a plan, just an intuited direction of travel, oblique to the near-mandatory one. But at that age, it caused me less stress to know it. Less fear. Much less. 

And yet... I'm also cursed with being the world's most self-conscious man, feeling continually judged by the ultra-orthodox majority and even at times (until recently) feeling entirely anolmalous in some respects to the point where fully taking that on board after years of holding it (barely aware I was doing so) at arm's length resulted in a series of major and minor breakdowns and shutdowns/burnouts over the last 5 years in particular. I'm getting better at shielding myself from that, caring less. But it's hard. Only solitude indoors removes from view the pattern of judgement encoded into society's very fabric. But it's not like amnesia starts and ends between entering and exiting my wonderfully modest house. The rumination continues - the signal of all those 'should's cushioned but still existing. And as soon as the television is turned on in any ill-disciplined way (channel hopping), prescribed norms are again relentlessly blasted at me again. 

I suppose a lot of my anxiety comes from being this walking conundrum while not entirely understanding why. So the strange mobius loop of an answer I'd have to give on this one is: I never started, and I never stopped.

Shardovan said:

run slightly or fully against the 'should's that bring you all the orthodox things you're supposed to want: Status, money, children, big house, ambition, 'the next thing'. whatever's trendy, any old relationship as long as there is one, and so on

I would add career advancement to that list. I have never understood why people make themselves misrable and stressed just to advance their career. I have seen people give up jobs they are perfectly happy in just because they felt they could not turn down a promotion to advance their career.

Interesting point you make about relationships too. I think there is so much pressure in society to be in a relationship just for the sake of it, even if you are not happy in it

I was thinking largely of career when I put ‘the next thing’ - but it’s a catch all for many things too 

I was thinking largely of career when I put ‘the next thing’ - but it’s a catch all for many things too