Why do we sell ourselves short?

When we are children our aspirations are often boundless. We see endless opportunities with the constraint to realising these things being in whether we actually want to do it or not. As we become older, we start to adapt to the world and inherit all kinds of perceived limitations. We start to find some compromise between what we actually want, and what we think is realistic, and we convince ourselves that this compromised objective is the goal.

The issue with this is that many of these "limitations" we internalise from our environment come from the fears, anxieties, and aversion to risk of others. They are seldom our own, and if they are, it's often because we've begun to believe those fears for ourselves. However, there is a greater issue. Which is that we've convinced ourselves to do things that we never actually wanted to do. We've diminished and down-scaled our our aspirations until they reach a size and shape that is appropriate for society's standards, then we expect ourselves to be inherently motivated and driven to do these things.

We can't have it both ways. If we want to fundamentally change ourselves and our desires to fit into what society deems reasonable, then we can't expect to be motivated. And equally, if we want to embrace our unfiltered aspirations, then we can't expect this to fit into what society expects. We can't expect to be understood and automatically facilitated by the world around us. But the upside is that at least we will be doing what we want.

And fundamentally what is life about? Is it about conformity and cohesion? Or is it about doing what we want and stepping into our individuality? I guess we can decide for ourselves. And based on this, we can start to think about which narratives and ideas can be discarded in service of this.