I spent my 20s pleasing everyone but me

...the cost of living for others and the courage to take your life back

Fear, expectations, and people-pleasing stole my best years, or rather, some of my best years, and for a long time, I didn’t even know it was happening. Talk about conditioning, lol.

I was doing the right things, saying the right things, showing up how I was expected to, even when it meant losing a part or all of myself. It was harder because effects like these are subtle, because there was no major crisis or huge breakdown. It was a consistent habit of abandoning myself to make others and society feel good. There was a lot of pressure as to how I was expected to behave and show up, which I allowed, because again, I was naive, and society (including the people in it) takes advantage of naivety and ignorance.

I didn’t start choosing myself until I was 29 (judging by my analysis after giving it a deep thought). Sounds like what some people on the internet would refer to as developing the frontal lobe lol.

Before then, my decisions were largely based on what I thought would make other people proud or comfortable. I didn’t have language for it then, but looking back, it’s clear I was performing. Performing for acceptance, for respect, for validation. I wanted to be seen as responsible, dependable, mature, someone who had it all together. But underneath all that, it was just Gbemi, silently asking for permission to live, because that’s exactly what it was.

A few months ago, January specifically, I met someone. We started talking about life in our 20s, and he casually shared all the things he did, how freely he explored, how he didn’t overthink everything, how he was intentional about his actions and did them for himself, how he took ownership of his life and in that moment, something in me cracked. I realized I hadn’t lived like that, I didn’t even give myself a chance to because I was scared and was fixated on being accepted, lol.

I was always thinking about how something would look, who would approve, who might be offended, what image I was maintaining. I was literally performing, not living for myself. Trying so hard to meet the insane expectations of people who didn’t even like me in the first place, when my mates were laying a foundation of what has become a full-blown building today. I weighed decisions by how “safe” they were, not by how true they felt to me or if I wanted them.

I meditated over that discussion for days, if not a week. It triggered a wave of reflection I wasn’t prepared for, and I kept thinking, “When did I ever give myself space to really live?” I mean to live fully for myself without guilt. Honestly, I couldn’t find so many answers.

The truth is, I ignored my own inner voice because I thought other people knew better, even when it was obvious this was my life. For a long time, I convinced myself this was maturity, but it wasn’t. It was control, it was me trying to survive life, not experience it.

I want to say this clearly, especially to the women reading this. Many of us were raised to believe that shrinking ourselves was a form of virtue. That to be liked, we had to be palatable, that to be seen as strong, we had to be endlessly giving and self-sacrificing. So we learned to perform strength while quietly grieving all the parts of ourselves we never permitted to exist. We were taught to be careful before we were taught to be bold. We were expected to endure before we were allowed to choose ourselves. And the cost of that conditioning is our lives.

I don’t want to become 75 and realize I spent my most vibrant years suppressing my aliveness. That’s what haunts me the most: the idea that I’ll look back and know I traded my one wild, precious life for a quiet, socially approved version of it. So now, I’m choosing differently, and I hope you do too. I’m not saying I’ve figured it all out, I’m still unlearning, but I’m choosing to show up anyway, imperfectly, and on my own terms.

There’s a particular kind of grief that comes with realizing how much of your life you gave away trying to be accepted. But there’s also a particular kind of power in deciding to take it back.

I’m learning to ask for what I want, not just what others expect of me, and I’ll tell you this: it’s hard, but it’s worth it. Because no matter how much praise you get, how curated your image is, how responsible you appear, if you’re not being honest with yourself, it’s a hollow kind of success, and it will haunt you when you least expect it.

So if you’re feeling what I’m saying, if this mirrors something you’ve felt, I want to encourage you to reclaim your life, piece by piece. There’s still time and you don’t need anyone’s permission.

Always remember these:
- The people who love you won’t need you to shrink to stay.
- The life you deserve won’t demand you betray yourself to keep it.
- And freedom starts the moment you stop negotiating your worth.

You deserve to live for you. To be happy. To live on your own terms and finally be in full control of your life. And I hope truly that you find the courage to do just that.

Talk soon,

Gbemi.