Blog post September - Guillaume Paquette-Jetten

“For years I was daunted by the expectations, as though I had to live up to her idea of who she thought I was (although I knew I was everything but).” This sentence, taken from the text “Fear” by Andres Gomez, is a strong example of how (and why) individuals end up creating (and performing) an impression of themselves that they can show in public.

In fact, Andres, as explained in the text, is afraid to show his true self even to his mom, because he feels that she has, like most of society, expectations of him being strong, brave and manly (like a man should be). The strongest social pressure here comes from people close to him that are adhering to generalized beliefs of how he (as a man) should act. Under such circumstances, an individual will most likely create (or try to create) an impression of himself that fits those social expectations in order to be accepted.

Developing up on that idea seen in class that every individual has at least two versions of himself (a “front of stage” version shown to everyone and a “backstage” version kept mainly to himself), I will rapidly explain here why I believe that our society is preventing its own members of reaching a state of true happiness, which is strongly paradoxical considering that happiness is seen as an universal goal and used as a motivation to influence our actions.

Many religious branches and theories, mostly those related to buddhism, will defend that the closer the two versions of yourself are (frontstage and backstage), the happier you are. In theory this makes perfect sense, because if you act freely as yourself, without trying to meet any expectations and without letting social pressure cram you into a mold where you don’t belong, you can mind your own business and enjoy life simply. Unfortunately, we are preventing ourselves from reaching this stage by pressuring each others into different molds where, in the end, nobody truly fits.

As shown by Andres text, the strongest pressure but also the strongest support will most likely be the one coming from people close to the person. Instead of pointing the overall societal system as the problem, individuals should simply concentrate on supporting those close to them that seem to be walking off the beaten path, because that’s where main changes will immerse at first.