Dear Tee,

“A worker makes a contract with the company. Have you made a contract with your parents when you were a baby? Have you asked to be born, in exchange for them raising you? Where is that contract, and have you signed it willingly?” Yeah, an emotional contract based on the fact that they took care of my physical needs since I was a kid. How do you counter something like that? As a parent, they may have been obligated to take care of me, but they could have put me in an orphanage or something but they didn’t. I could have suffered physically but they ensured that I didn’t.

“Good, loving parents have children not because they expect the child to return their investment and bring them profit down the line, but because they love the child as a unique and precious human being, whom they help raise to be a happy and healthy individual, with their own goals, dreams and aspirations. Good, loving parents don’t raise workers or slaves who will obey their commands, but free people, who can freely decide on their own destiny.” I know, I am not saying my parents are expecting me to pay them back or anything. I am saying that I will never really achieve true freedom cause the fact that they are my parents will overrule every desire that I have. The fact that they took care of me will overrule my opinions because their opinion would have more weight to them because they have the authority of a parent. Even if I become rich, they will still have some degree of control over me cause they have conditioned me to be obedient. Normally we would say that we shouldn’t care about other people’s opinion, but how can u ignore your own parents? I find that very difficult to do because at the end of the day, I only have them to turn to in the time of need any way. I have no real friends or anything. If there is anyone I can turn to for help, it would be God and my parents. I was willing to go out of my way for others, but nobody did that for me (except my parents on my physical needs). My parents are not intentionally chaining me. They just conditioned me into being an obedient dog without them even realizing it. They inadvertently created that mental prison in me and now I can’t do anything without fearing them, even though I am thousands of miles away from them. In one way it is good because at least u know I won’t do anything stupid or get involved in any wrong activities. But in another way the chains suppressed most of my desires and now I am just a shell, a dog that just does what it is told. One time when my father was angry at me for playing video games, I asked him if he would rather expect me to work like a robot with no desires. And he said that is exactly what he wanted. Maybe he said it out of anger in the moment. But things like that have etched itself into my heart.

“The child (and later adolescent) is not seen as an individual, with the freedom to have their own goals and dreams, but as someone to fulfill the wishes of their parents.” I was allowed to have my own goals and dreams, but the difference is that those goals and dreams were shaped by my parents’ wishes. So technically I am still fulfilling my goals and dreams, but they are based on the desires that my parents had for me.

I want to read your suggestions still. My soul is just tired of everything.

Paradoxy