Why We Should Stop Being Appropriate

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I hate the concept of being “appropriate” in the context of saying how we really feel. No, really, what does it mean, anyway?

I hate the fact that we’re all programmed to conformity. We abide by existing social constructs because we were, after all, born into a world of constructs. But those constructs are arbitrary, and yet we pattern our actions to socially established standards of what is and isn’t acceptable.

We have become an apathetic society that feeds on confinement.

We always choose to prolong the agony and beat around the bush that we end up missing out on the good stuff. We prefer the drama, and anything that seems complicated, because we just couldn’t let our truth be told. We choose to hold our feelings in because we think we’re able to keep ourselves and everyone else from the pain of just feeling. We have grown fond of being caged by the words we held in, just because we fear rebelling the expectations of society.

What, really, are we trying to push against in defining what is and what isn’t appropriate? Why do we keep imposing a “universal” standard on when honesty is proper and improper? Why can’t we follow our own subjective standards instead?

We have situated ourselves in opposing notions of what can and can’t be said or done in such a way that it has become an inescapable structure—a repetitive cycle that goes on, and on, and on. We have been succumbing to this cycle long enough that we fail to notice we’re not anymore asserting our position on what we think is appropriate but are rather merely following a pattern.

But we shouldn’t be enslaved by these social constructs because they are, after all, “constructs.” They exist only in our minds, fabricated by our repetitive submissiveness to socially-created labels.

There is so much more that we can gain from being honest and outspoken rather than being a person who never professes his or her real feelings, just because they’re afraid that they’re not “appropriate” thoughts.

We should be allowed to tell others how we feel whenever we want to speak about them. There shouldn’t be an “appropriate” time, order, or place of doing so. There shouldn’t be such a feeling as “shamefully honest” because there is no dishonor in saying what we mean, and meaning what we say.

If there is time to be courageous, it’s now. Otherwise, never at all.