I was walking to the market on Saturday, listening to music, and while I was walking, Rihanna’s song Unfaithful started playing. Listening to the song, I had this awareness of what it really means to be unfaithful in my world. As a person who has always tried to do the right thing, loyal to men who took it for granted, loyal to friends who are no longer in my life, loyal to family patterns and expectations, I always did the right thing.
No matter how hard, no matter how I felt, no matter what I wanted. The right thing.
But right according to who?
Who defined what is right? Society? The church? The government? There seem to be some unwritten laws somewhere that the collective simply follows through on.
I did it to the extreme, as if someone had an invisible whip and hit me every time I did something unconventional, made a mistake, or did something “bad.”
All my life, I had this feeling that if I did something wrong, I would be seen, and consequences would come. And it felt true. Every mistake I made in school, at work, or in my personal life felt so public, ridiculously public. It felt less like accountability and more like social persecution, as if I were being beheaded in public while everyone watched, talked about it, and waited to see what happened next.
And there was always someone in a position of authority holding the whip and once they were finished, I would take the whip from them and continue the punishment myself. I would replay everything, overthink every detail, and put myself down as much as possible, making sure I had paid enough for whatever mistake I had made.
It’s a horrible feeling.
And I still question whether it is really real or if it’s just in my head. Maybe no one talks about my mistakes. Maybe no one even notices them as much as I think they do. Yet I always wonder if they do.
Going back to the song, it made me realize that the only person I have truly been unfaithful to in my life was myself. For the sake of doing the right thing. For the sake of being accepted. For the sake of integrating into groups that I don’t even care about anymore.
What is right?
Is it right to always do right by others while being unhappy yourself?
If these are the rules of the world, then people-pleasing is the religion.