How Much of Your Life Did You Actually Choose?

If you stripped away expectations, what would you still want?

It sounds like a simple question. But most people don’t answer it. Not honestly, anyway.

Because if you really stop and look closely, a lot of your life doesn’t feel like something you actively chose. It feels more like something you stepped into. Something that was already in motion before you even understood what choosing meant.

This is exactly the tension explored in The Empty Hand Paradox by Lord-Emmanuel Tambe-Eyong. The book makes a quiet but unsettling point: we don’t begin life with identity, goals, or definitions of success. We begin empty. Then, over time, things are added.

Not all of those things are chosen.

The Script You Didn’t Notice

Culture doesn’t come to you as a rulebook. No one sits you down and says, “Here’s how to live your life.”

Instead, it shows you.

Through what gets praised. Through what gets rewarded. Through what gets ignored.

You grow up seeing what “success” looks like. You watch which careers are respected. You notice what kind of life people admire. And slowly, without realizing it, you start moving in that direction.

By the time you’re old enough to ask what you actually want, you’re already halfway down a path.

It feels like your path. But it was shaped long before you questioned it.

When “Normal” Becomes Automatic

Think about how most people choose their careers.

It’s rarely a deep, reflective process. It’s more like narrowing down options based on what seems practical, acceptable, or safe. Something that makes sense. Something that works.

And that’s how a huge part of life gets decided.

Not through clarity, but through default.

This is what the book calls the cultural script. A set of invisible expectations that guide your decisions without ever announcing themselves. You don’t feel controlled by it. You feel guided by what’s “normal.”

But normal isn’t neutral. It’s inherited.

The Subtle Shift From Living to Maintaining

At some point, you start earning. And for a while, it feels like freedom.

Then your life expands to match your income.

You upgrade your lifestyle. You add comfort. You improve things. None of it feels excessive. It feels deserved.

But slowly, something shifts.

You’re no longer just living. You’re maintaining.

Maintaining the standard. Maintaining the image. Maintaining the level you’ve reached.

And now, your choices are shaped by what you have to sustain.

The irony is quiet but real: the more you accumulate, the less flexible you become.

That sense of openness you had earlier in life starts to narrow. Not because you chose it consciously, but because your life now has weight.

The Pressure You Didn’t Agree To

Then there’s comparison.

You don’t wake up wanting to compare your life to others. But you do it anyway.

You see what people are doing, achieving, experiencing. You see how they present their lives. And even if you know it’s curated, it still sets a standard in your mind.

Without realizing it, your desires start to shift.

Not because they came from you.

But because they were shaped by what you keep seeing.

This is one of the most powerful ideas in The Empty Hand Paradox: much of what feels personal is actually conditioned. The things you chase often don’t originate from within. They are responses to what you’ve been exposed to repeatedly.

What Does Success Even Mean?

Somewhere along the way, you were handed a definition of success.

A good job. Financial stability. A certain kind of lifestyle. Progress that can be seen.

Again, none of this is inherently wrong.

But it becomes a problem when it’s never questioned.

Because if you never define success for yourself, you end up chasing a version that may not actually fit you. You can spend years moving forward, only to realize you were moving in the wrong direction.

And that realization doesn’t come loudly. It shows up quietly.

As restlessness. As dissatisfaction. There is a feeling that something isn’t quite right, even when everything looks fine.

The Difference That Changes Everything

There’s a line of thinking that separates two kinds of desires.

The ones you chose.

And the ones you absorbed.

A chosen desire feels steady. It doesn’t need constant validation. You’d still want it even if no one else knew about it.

A conditioned desire feels urgent. It depends on the comparison. It fades quickly once achieved, only to be replaced by the next thing.

This connects directly to another idea from the book: the hedonic treadmill. The cycle where you keep chasing more, expecting it to finally feel like enough, only to return to the same baseline again.

If the desire wasn’t truly yours to begin with, no amount of achievement will satisfy it.

Why It’s So Hard to Break Out

The hardest part about all of this is that it doesn’t feel like a trap.

It feels like life.

Everything around you reinforces the same direction. The same goals. The same measures of progress.

Questioning it feels uncomfortable. Even risky.

Because if you step outside the script, there’s no clear path. No guarantee. No external validation waiting for you.

And most people would rather stay in a familiar structure than face that uncertainty.

Coming Back to the Beginning

One of the most powerful ideas in The Empty Hand Paradox is this: you started with nothing.

No identity. No expectations. No pressure to be anything specific.

Just openness.

That openness doesn’t disappear. It just gets buried under layers of conditioning, habits, and assumptions.

But it’s still there.

And remembering that changes how you see everything.

Because if your identity was built over time, it can also be examined. Adjusted and even redefined.

So What Would You Choose?

Not the version of you shaped by expectations.

Not the version trying to keep up.

Just you, without all the noise.

What would you still want?

That question isn’t meant to disrupt your life overnight. It’s meant to bring awareness to it.

Because once you start seeing what was inherited versus what was chosen, something shifts.

You stop moving automatically.

You start choosing deliberately.

And that’s where a different kind of life begins.

Not one that looks better.

But one that actually feels like yours.