Hey there, Reader!

Honest question for you on this Tuesday: did you choose your life?

Think about it. The job you took. The city you live in. The path you went down right out of school. The partner you chose. The priorities that have organized your days for the last two or three decades.

Did you choose those things? Or did you do what was expected of you?

I recorded this week's episode of the School of Midlife on a whim. I was out on a hike, and this idea arrived that I had never quite heard articulated before. I scrapped the episode I had planned and recorded this one instead. And honestly? It might be one of the most important conversations I've had on this podcast in three and a half years.

Here's the idea.

We are told — and I've coached from this premise for years — that our lives are the culmination of all the choices we've made. Where to live, who to marry, what to study, where to take that first job.

All of it rooted in choice. Agency. Free will.

But here's the question I've been puzzling on: what if most of those choices weren't really choices at all?

Here's what I mean by that. What if the "choices" weren't actually choices at all...but were expectations dressed up as "choices"?

For high-achieving, people-pleasing, approval-seeking women, they looked like choices. In reality, they were expectations that mirrored the work ethic instilled by our parents and grandparents, and the societal script about what timelines were acceptable and what smart, responsible women do.

What if what looked like a choice was actually a Hobson's choice, a choice that's not really a choice at all. One that offers the form of freedom and free choice...without the substance of it.

And what if that explains why, even after doing everything right, checking every box, achieving everything you said you wanted — you still find yourself wondering: is this the life I actually wanted? Or is it just the life I was supposed to want?

Makes you think; doesn't it? Well, it has me thinking, anyway.

I am genuinely curious to hear your thoughts on this one, and I want to hear from you. Take a listen, but then please come back, hit reply, and tell me: did the choices in the first half of your life feel like real choices? Or did they feel more like living up to a yardstick someone else put in front of you?

This idea is still forming, and it's actually finding its way into the book I'm writing. (YAY!) Since I'm still working through the idea of choice, it would be so helpful if you would weigh in and share your thoughts. So please, write back.

So glad you're here. Thanks for listening!

xx, Laurie