Lately, I’ve been listening more than talking when I’m out socializing or engaging in my community. I did it intentionally. I wanted to take the temperature of the moment. What is this current world doing to people? What’s consuming their thoughts? What are they worried about? What are they yearning for? Where do they feel constrained?
It’s been a fascinating exercise—one I highly recommend you try over the next week or two. You discover so much when you truly listen. I want to keep this habit going. I’ve always tried to be mindful when a conversation becomes unbalanced, making sure everyone has an equal chance to speak. But when you intentionally stay quiet, you gain a whole new perspective on people.
And something has surprised me.
So many people already know how they feel — and yet they ask everyone around them what they think they should feel.
They explain their situation and make it clear they’re unhappy.
They describe physical and emotional symptoms and admit they’re depleted.
They vent about the realities of their daily lives — and it’s obvious they don’t want the life they’re currently living.
By the time they finish setting the scene, they’ve already revealed their conclusion in the way they tell the story; you can hear it. The facts that might suggest ambivalence are absent. Their frustration, their longing, their confinement — it’s all there.
And then comes the question.
Am I being selfish?
Is this normal?
Are my feelings valid?
Would you choose to walk away?
It’s as if they’re holding a perfectly functional internal compass… and then polling the room to see whether north is socially acceptable.
The Consensus Trap
There’s a pattern.
A quiet, simmering discontent.
Lives structured around obligations they no longer freely choose.
A sense of being boxed in, trapped, controlled or dictated to.
People staying in relationships that drain everyone involved.
Working years beyond when they wanted to retire because “my workplace needs me.”
Keeping large homes at 68 because their adult children don’t want to lose the nostalgia of their childhood bedrooms.
Paying for things that no longer align with their values because expectations have quietly calcified over time.
In some of the retirement forums I belong to online, I often see grandparents talking about having to provide full-time childcare because it’s expected of them. They flat out state that they’d rather be travelling, joining recreational leagues, or taking classes that interest them.
I see eldercare taken on with no discussion of limits. It’s done to the point where people sacrifice their own physical health and quality of life.
I see houseguests welcomed out of guilt, not desire, with no conversation about an exit date.
Many people share their desire to socialize, travel, or actively engage with their community now that they finally have the time and resources. Yet, they have a spouse who isn’t interested in any of it.
As a result, they find themselves staying home, keeping their spouse company, and quietly mourning the years slipping away while living a life they don’t truly want. If only they felt they had permission to pursue their own dreams, they would.
But somewhere along the lines, they’ve internalized the message that a good spouse would never do that, so they hold back. Resentful, sad and envious of those with perceived greater freedoms than they.
Let me be clear: this is not a call for isolation, indifference, or a lack of empathy. Community matters. Generosity matters. Being present matters.
Some responsibility is inherent in being part of a family. I’m not advocating outright selfishness or ignoring the needs of those around us. What’s missing for some is the balance between these and the anger that comes as a result.
There is a profound difference between choosing to give and feeling you have no choice at all.
There is also no requirement to defend your choices against hypothetical judgment. Often people assume others are judging them — and sometimes they are, but not always. Even if they are, those people do not know the full history, the nuance, the private dynamics.
What I wish more of us could see when experiencing this unhappiness is that we cannot control other people’s assumptions. Nor is it our job to. And nobody else is responsible for our own happiness. It’s up to us to determine what we want out of this life, and to steer our ship toward those waters.
What is relevant is this: only you know your circumstances. You know your capacity. You know what feels aligned — and what feels corrosive.
When people override their own internal signals long enough, something erodes.
The Body Doesn’t Forget
In The Body Keeps the Score, psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk argues that the body stores what the mind suppresses. Chronic stress, unexpressed emotion, long-term self-abandonment — they do not simply disappear. They register physiologically.
The field of psychoneuroimmunology continues to explore the interaction between psychological processes, the nervous system, and immune function. Emotional suppression is not benign.
I recently listened to a podcast discussing the emerging research on the connection between stress and both inflammation in the body and autoimmune disease. Certain personality traits—such as difficulty expressing anger, suppressing personal needs, and prioritizing harmony at one’s own expense—may be linked to these conditions. While correlation doesn’t imply causation, the pattern is difficult to ignore. Constantly being a people pleaser can take a serious toll on both your physical and mental health.
When your nervous system lives in a permanent state of compliance, something eventually pays the bill.
And I can’t help but wonder how many of these conversations I’m hearing are early warning signals.
Trading Away the Prime Window
Your 60s through early 70s are often called the “Go-Go” years of retirement. Health is still relatively intact. Energy remains. There is, finally, autonomy. There might be just a little bit of savings to have fun with.
This is the window many people have waited decades for — the years when they can pursue long-suppressed dreams.
If that window is missed, the probabilities change. Health shifts. Momentum fades. Energy declines. The dreams that felt reachable at 62 can feel unrealistic at 75.
And yet I see people trading these years — arguably their most self-directed years — to maintain an image, avoid judgment, continue working when they don’t want to, take a promotion to a more stressful position they didn’t seek out, or simply comply with what others expect, to keep the peace.
They wait for permission:
From a spouse.
From their children.
From colleagues.
From “what people will think.”
Permission rarely arrives.
If you are waiting for universal agreement before you change your life, you will wait forever.
Normal According to Whom?
There is a subtle cultural script that equates goodness with self-sacrifice.
Especially for women.
Especially for caregivers.
Especially for those raised to be “nice.”
The script says:
Don’t rock the boat.
Don’t disappoint.
Don’t leave if others are comfortable.
But what if the quiet resentment you feel isn’t selfishness?
What if it’s information?
Your internal discomfort is data.
Your longing is data.
Your fatigue is data.
Why are we so quick to outsource the interpretation?
Are You Blaming the Wrong Person?
One of the most common behaviours I see—and I am absolutely guilty of this myself—is the instinct to feel resentful because we believe we’ve been forced into an obligation by someone else’s choices. We tell ourselves we had no option. That they put us in this position. That their decision created our burden.
But if we slow down and examine it honestly, we often discover something uncomfortable: we’re not boxed in by their values—we’re boxed in by our own.
We act because our moral code compels us to. We sacrifice because of our own internal standards. And when others don’t share the same, we become agitated. We want them to think as we do. Instead of acknowledging that we are choosing to act in alignment with our own value system, we externalize the frustration. We get angry. We blame. We say, They caused this.
But they didn’t.
They are operating according to their own internal compass. We are operating according to ours. The tension arises when our code requires something of us that we would prefer not to give. Remaining true to our principles sometimes costs us comfort. And that cost can sting.
Consider the grandmother who spends three days preparing an elaborate multi-course dinner for her adult children, even though her knees ache and she’s exhausted. She vents to her friends later: “They just show up, eat, and leave me with the dishes! They don’t realize how much work this is.”
But no one is forcing her to host at this level. Her children would likely be perfectly happy with a potluck or a simple pizza night.
She remains in the kitchen because her own internal definition of being a “good mother” or a “proper host” requires this level of service. Her frustration isn’t really about her children’s lack of initiative—it’s the friction between her traditional values and her body’s genuine need for rest.
Her internal code is what keeps her there.
And that realization changes everything.
Because once you recognize that you are acting from your own principles, you regain agency. You can continue to act in alignment with them—but now with ownership instead of resentment. Or you can re-evaluate the boundary and decide whether your code needs adjusting.
Either way, the power shifts back to you.
Designing a Life That Fits
Following your own compass does not mean detonating your life impulsively.
It means asking better questions:
If no one judged me, what would I choose?
If my time were shorter than I assume, what would matter most?
What am I doing out of love — and what am I doing out of some other emotion?
Self-love is not indulgence. It is stewardship.
It is recognizing that you are responsible for the design of your life.
Not your children.
Not your spouse.
Not your friend group.
You.
When I gently asked some of the people I’d been observing whether they still had dreams, every one of them said “no”.
No.
I suspect the dream isn’t gone — it’s buried. Stuffed down after years of practicality and obligation. It likely needs silence, space, nature, and time to re-emerge.
If more people stepped off the treadmill for even a few days — walked, reflected, disconnected from the noise — I believe many would rediscover something they once wanted deeply.
Perhaps what they’re really waiting for is permission.
Permission they could give themselves.
I heard a phrase recently that has stayed with me: “The keys to the prison cell lies with the prisoner.” I believe it perfectly applies in this situation.
The Courage to Trust Yourself
The people I’ve been listening to don’t lack awareness.
They lack trust.
Trust that their internal compass is calibrated.
Trust that discomfort is legitimate.
Trust that change is allowed.
Trust that loving themselves is not betrayal.
If you wait for unanimous approval before adjusting your life, you risk aging inside a cage built by consensus.
You do not need to become ruthless.
You do not need to withdraw from community.
You simply need to become honest.
You are allowed to retire if you are financially able whether your spouse agrees you should or not.
You are allowed to downsize.
You are allowed to say no.
You are allowed to disappoint someone if it means not abandoning yourself.
You are allowed to love yourself.
Following your own compass is not about rejecting others.
It is about refusing to reject yourself.
And the real question isn’t whether others agree with your direction.
The question is whether you are finally willing to honour it.
If you enjoyed this article, I have written one on Stretching Yourself After 50 that may be of interest to you.
Please enjoy some of my videos on my YouTube channel
Why not check out Pt II of my Finding Your Identity Videos https://youtu.be/6bh3XvOWtr4
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