I watched the original Sex & the City movie over the weekend. I realized two things: 

• I still need to get into that “more rigorous” workout routine.
• I have not been making my own rules when it comes to my career, love and life.

Carrie Bradshaw wanted the big wedding. Her fiancé couldn’t handle it and he abandoned her on their wedding day. I cried while Carrie bashed him over the head with her own wedding bouquet. And I begged her to run away from him at the end of the movie. Instead, she collapsed into his arms in their gigantic closet. Carrie may make her own rules when it comes to fashion and her career, but her ideas of love and relationships were not her own.

As it turns out, I haven’t been making my own rules either. I haven’t even been changing the rules of typical American life. All I did was switch a few steps around in the growing up process. I went to college. I met a boy. I found a full-time job. I “settled down” by buying a house. I got a dog. I was one proposal away from the American Dream. The only reason I wanted everything I was working towards was because I had someone to share it with. Well, he’s gone now. (If I had the notoriety and courage of Penelope Trunk, I would divulge all the details here.)

I have a new rule: I will question traditions and expectations that have been drilled into my head since birth. While I was reaching milestones and meeting everyone else’s expectations of me, my peace of mind was replaced with stress and busyness.

Why are you doing what you are doing? Are you doing it because that’s what your friends or siblings are doing? Or because your parents did the same thing? Are you doing it because movies and IKEA magazines and Christmas cards remind you that this is what you should be doing? Or are you doing it because you’ve looked and thought about every possible way of living and then decided on the lifestyle that works for you, your happiness and inner peace?

Try making your own rules (again)… I will too.