The life you live is it yours?

What feels obvious isn't always easy to let go.

Some choices seem obvious. Is it like that?

You chose the right education, found a good job, took the right steps — and yet it felt more like an obligation than a voluntary choice. As if you had something to make up for, or couldn't disappoint someone, even though no one had ever actually asked you to. It was simply something you had to do.

Doubt

I witnessed this clearly a while ago, during a leadership training I was facilitating. One of the participants — the son of refugee parents — had built an impressive career and, recognised as a high potential, had been given the opportunity to join the training. He did what was expected of him: performing well, building a stable life, achieving something his parents had never had the chance to. On paper, everything was right. Yet somewhere during the training, doubts began to surface.

Guilt

That his parents had given up literally everything for their children weighed into nearly every decision he made — without him realising it. Not because his parents had ever asked him to. But because, deep down, he felt he owed it to them. They had sacrificed everything for him. Every step he took was, without him realising it, an answer to what his parents had given up.

Obvious.

He came to realise he was doing things he didn't fully believe in. He realised he was paying off a debt — not with money, but with the choices he made. It didn't feel like guilt. It felt obvious. Like, "this is just part of the deal." Out of love for his parents, out of loyalty, out of responsibility. Work hard, earn money, make sure your family never goes without. Until the moment you realise your own feelings no longer get a say.

Question

During the training, one question put wheels in motion: "What would your parents want for you most?" Not "What do they expect from you?" Not "What would make them proud?" But what would they, out of their deepest love for you, truly want for you?

There was no ready answer. It took time before the insight began to land. His parents had never asked for compensation for what they had given up. They simply wanted their child to be happy — in his own way, free to make his own choices.

Realisation

Realisation came step by step, not in a single moment of clarity. But it kept growing, and eventually it was enough for him to dare choose a different path. Not an adjusted version of the old one, but a completely new direction — driven by his own ambition and passion instead of what he felt he owed.

Loyalty

This pattern isn't unique to children of refugees. It shows up wherever loyalty to one's parents — conscious or unconscious — comes to dictate what someone "ought" to do. It affects those whose families have become financially dependent on them, those who were the first in the family to go to university, and those who once felt a parent would only find peace of mind if they "made it" in life. Hence the question 'the life you live is it yours?'.

Consideration

If you recognise yourself in this, the question that unlocked everything for my trainee might be worth sitting with too: what would your parents want most of all for you? Not to shortchange your parents, but to draw the line again between what comes from loyalty and what comes from within yourself. Making that distinction is precisely where change begins.

Do you recognise this, and is it something you'd like to explore further?

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