I don’t like being told what to do. I don’t like being told what I am thinking. I don’t like it when people try to tell me to live my life the way that they think I should.

In fact, I hate it and react violently to it. The worst arguments I have had in my life have generally revolved around or involved people trying to tell me what to do or trying to tell me what I am thinking.

This really isn’t anything new, but I have discovered in recent years that the discomfort and unease that situations such as this create in me is being rapidly replaced by outright fury.

I wasn’t raised this way. My Mother (and my Father when I re-established my relationship with him in my late teenage years) never really dictated my life to me. I might have gotten my life straightened out a bit earlier if she had, but by the time her boyfriend Richard moved into the house I was used to pretty much being able to master my own fate. Of course, I had no idea how to do so at the time and made a whole bunch of really BAD choices. Richard tried to dictate my life to me. He tried to tell me how to live my life, and it often ended up causing a very ugly situation.

The last time I accepted anyone telling me what to do was the day that my Mother, after putting up with me being a shiftless bum who was fully capable of getting a job but too damned lazy to do so, knocked on my door at noon one day (waking me up, of course) and said “Come on, Mike. It’s time to get up and get a job.”

I thought about what she said, realized that she was right, and pretty much turned my life completely around at that point. Got a job, went back to school, lost weight, became a vegetarian…All prompted by that one sentence, but all on my own terms. When I told my Mother I was engaged, she thought that it was a bit soon in our relationship but she kept it to herself. Sure, she might have raised an eyebrow. Her “oh really” might have been a bit on the “do you know what you are doing” side, but she never once tried to tell me that I should not be getting married. She does not dictate my life to me. She makes suggestions. She asks pointed questions. If I ask her what I should do in a situation she will tell me what she would do, but she does not offer that kind of advice without being prompted (and on the very rare occasions when she does, she often gets her head bitten off).

She knows that it is my life, and that I have to be free to make my own choices on my terms, and that I have to live with those choices. Sometimes that means she has to be there for me to pick me up when I fall down, and she is always there if I need her without a single “I told you so.” (For an example of this, read a story I wrote on the site earlier this year that my friend Sam dubbed “Fear And Loathing In Philadelphia.”

So if my Mother doesn’t dictate my life to me, I damn sure am not going to take it from anyone else.

I have gotten where I am in life on my own terms. I am who I am because of the choices that I make. No, these are not always the best choices. No, I don’t always do the smartest thing. You know what, though? Those choices, and leading my life the way that I do, make me who I am. A good father. A good friend. A good partner. A good employee. Someone you can count on when the chips are down. Someone who occasionally makes mistakes (sometimes really big ones), but does his best to try and make the world around him a bit brighter.

I will fall down, on occasion. I would hope that my friends and family will be there to pick me up and dust me off when I do, but if they aren’t I will get up on my own.

I refuse, however, to be talked to like a child. I refuse to put up with someone telling me how to live my life. I have worked too hard to get where I am in life to let someone disrespect me in that manner.

And I shall end this particular post with a few quotes…

I don’t need you to worry for me cuz’ I’m all right.
I don’t want you to tell me it’s time to go home.
I don’t care what you say anymore this is my life.
Go ahead with your own life, leave me alone.

– Billy Joel, “My Life”

Being honest with your feelings doesn’t make them right.
– Fisher (97X Morning Show Host)