Live Your Life The Way You Want - Fight Societal Constructs

In this episode, Boom talks about how isolating it could be when you try to live a healthy life. There is almost this struggle to choose to live more mindfully against the constructs of society.

Transcript

Hello everyone!

I hope that you're doing amazing wherever you are in the world.

My name is Bhoom Shekha and I welcome you to my channel.

As always,

I'm so grateful you're listening,

Subscribing and commenting.

I really do appreciate the support.

In this one,

I want to speak to you guys about how isolating it can be sometimes to try and live a healthy life.

It's quite hilarious actually how often I have to fight against the common mentality or friend's mentality or societal mentality in order to keep my right to live the healthy life that I want to live.

It's fascinating to me because constantly on a daily basis,

Sometimes twice or thrice a day,

I'm literally fighting or banging my head against the constructs of society to be allowed to live my life the way I want to live it.

Now,

This video is just about food.

I'm trying to keep it separate.

Or alcohol or consumption in general.

But there are many other ways that I have to fight society in order to want to live life the way I want to live.

To be free to do what I want to do.

But in regards to food and alcohol,

I found it to be one of the most pervasive things in society that we have to fight against.

Not only in terms of veganism or vegetarianism,

Obviously that's a big one as well.

Because you're constantly going to restaurants or you're constantly surrounded by people who are eating meat around you.

But also not only are they eating meat around you,

But telling you that you should be eating meat as well.

So there's that temptation there or that argument that always has to come up.

No,

I'm fine as I am.

Things like that.

Not that I'm completely 100% vegetarian or vegan at all.

But I noticed that there is a strong pressure on human beings nowadays,

Our humanity,

To eat meat.

So that's just part of it and I'm sure a lot of you guys have noticed that as well.

But also in relationship to that is the pressure to drink milk in so many different cases.

I'm constantly having to talk to the people at restaurants or cafes to ask them to put soy milk or walnut milk or any other kind of milk except cow's milk.

And it's just very hard for them to understand that I don't want cow's milk.

And a lot of times they'll end up automatically putting cow's milk into my drinks just because they're so used to it.

And so that's again another thing that you have to fight about.

It's not a very major fight but it does come up quite often.

And then obviously the other thing about it also has to do with alcohol and alcohol consumption.

I stopped drinking alcohol I would say 10 or 12 years ago.

About 10 years ago.

The only time I actually have alcohol is maybe once a year when we're toasting with champagne at New Year's or some particular festival.

And I'll just take a sip of it.

But even now I don't do that anymore because I really don't want to put any alcohol into my body.

But in general I stopped drinking a long time ago because I realized it wasn't doing anything good to me.

Actually it was a very negative lifestyle that I was starting to get into.

And it meant that I was foggy all the time.

My brain wasn't working at its capacity.

My body wasn't feeling the greatest.

I was hungover all the time.

It was just not the right kind of environment that I wanted to set myself up in.

But I noticed that when I first stopped drinking it was as if I had committed the biggest sin ever.

As if I was telling everyone around me that I was rejecting them.

They would look at me with eyes of horror and disdain and they would always think to me,

Maybe if you just had a little bit of coke and rum it would be fine.

It's just a little bit.

Just a glass.

It doesn't make a difference.

One glass is not going to kill you.

And constantly I would always be like,

No I'm not drinking anymore.

And they're like,

Well is it because of religious reasons?

I'm like,

No.

It's not.

It's just I don't want to drink anymore.

Our culture,

Our society in general,

Not only just when you think of alcohol you think maybe British culture is very much into alcohol or Irish people.

It's not just that anymore.

Every culture I've been in and every country I've lived in,

All of the people in there are absolutely obsessed with drinking alcohol.

Absolutely.

As if alcohol,

As if they could go without food for a day or two but they cannot go without their daily dose of alcohol.

And it's just become this culture where everyone drinks almost every single day.

Either it's a glass of wine or it's a shot of something or it's brandy.

Whatever it might be.

People end up drinking almost every single day if not more.

And also if not every single day then at least once or twice a day.

Once or twice a week is definitely everyone's cup of tea.

Cup of alcohol.

But I've noticed that as time goes on it's become less and less pervasive.

Perhaps more and more people are not drinking alcohol so it's becoming more common for me to say,

No I don't drink.

And people are like,

Alright cool.

That's fine.

But in the beginning I knew and I found out it was very difficult to convince people that I wasn't drinking and it's okay for me not to drink.

And I'm still going to have fun.

It's alright for you to drink in front of me.

And you don't have to convince me and neither do I have to convince you to my side.

And I think people kind of started switching not only because they realized that I'm a spiritual person and I'm into yoga and health and all this stuff.

But also because they realized that I can dance without inhibition and I can have fun at a party without any problems,

Without the need of alcohol.

I don't need to drink alcohol in order to have fun.

And so once they started noticing that then they realized that perhaps alcohol is not necessary as a social lubricant anymore for me.

Or as an ambition remover.

And therefore it's okay for me to drink.

It's okay for me to be around all of this.

Sorry,

It's okay for me not to drink.

You see how easy it is for me to say these words even.

It's okay for me to drink.

And so a lot of times I actually skip a lot of social events because I notice that there's going to be alcohol there.

And I notice that the same kind of people who are completely coherent and intelligent when they are not drinking can turn into sometimes complete fools when they're drinking.

And a lot of times the negative energy that is charged with alcohol,

Everyone gets charged with this kind of negative alcohol energy.

I just don't want to be around that because I notice that it drags me down as well.

I'm around all these people and I feel myself going into the same mode of negativity,

Of depression,

Of downward spiral.

And so in a lot of cases I just kind of avoid those social situations.

Again that means though that I am basically cutting myself off from a lot of different things that are happening in this world,

In this culture,

In most cultures,

Where I won't be able to go to a lot of events because they have alcohol in them.

Of course that's my own choice,

But it means that life kind of becomes more and more isolating as you start living in a certain manner.

If you don't eat meat then you're kind of isolating yourself from a lot of different places.

If you don't drink alcohol,

Again you're isolating yourself from a lot of different places.

If you don't drink milk,

If you don't eat dairy,

If you are becoming that kind of person who gets up early and does yoga in the morning,

Has to go to sleep early,

Again you're cutting yourself off from a lot of social events because of that.

And in general I'm noticing that I'm spending a lot more time,

Which is nice for me,

I like it,

I'm an introvert so it's okay,

But I do notice that I'm spending a lot of time on my own,

By myself,

In my own way,

Because a lot of the events that I would go to are sometimes taking place beyond my bedtime.

Because I wake up at 5 it means that I have to be at least by 9.

30-10,

Which means that most events are out of scope for me.

Not that I completely avoid them,

But maybe once or twice a year I will go out,

But that's very rare as well.

And again,

Because of the fact that I don't go to a lot of the different restaurants that serve meat,

I will go there if my friend is going there and I don't have a problem with people eating meat in front of me.

I just don't like having conversations about it,

And if I know a person is not going to bug me about not eating meat or not eating this or that,

Then it's okay,

I will go to these events.

But as time goes on I am noticing little by little that many things that I'm doing are isolating me.

And many things I'm doing are because I want to live a healthy life,

It's because I want to live that kind of spiritually aspired life,

Or because I want to live that kind of awakened life,

And that means that I'm basically cutting myself off from a lot of non-awake,

Non-spiritual deeds or events or situations out there.

And I did not realize,

I had heard that it can be very isolating to live this kind of lifestyle,

But I had never actually experienced it.

But I'm really noticing now,

As time goes on,

That it can be very isolating indeed.

The lucky thing is that I'm actually surrounded by a lot of different people who are living the same kind of strict lifestyle as me,

So we are able to hang out and we are able to support each other,

So I have this community around me.

But if you didn't have that community and you were trying to live this kind of lifestyle,

It would be very difficult,

Extremely difficult for someone to be able to live that lifestyle.

It would be very difficult because constantly they'll be pulled in all these different directions,

Constantly they'll be pulled into living a life that perhaps they don't want to live,

Or into doing things that perhaps they don't want to do because of social pressure,

Because of peer pressure,

Because of societal pressure,

Because of cultural pressure.

All of this stuff is trying to put us into the box,

And we're trying to get out of the box,

And we're like,

No,

I want to live this different kind of life.

And they're constantly trying to put you back into the box saying,

No,

No,

It's okay,

Just live like everyone else is living.

It's okay,

You don't have to change yourself.

It's okay to live an unhealthy life.

And so that's what I wanted to share with you,

That if you are in this sort of isolated movement right now because of the fact that you're living this kind of lifestyle,

It's totally normal.

A lot of us are kind of going through the same thing,

And all you need to do really is to find a community of people who are trying to live the same life as you so that you don't feel so isolated,

So you have companionship and you have this kind of support around you,

Otherwise you're going to feel isolated.

And if you feel too isolated,

Eventually you're going to be like,

Well,

I don't care about this anymore.

I'd rather have people around me.

I'd rather have friends around me.

And you might give up on this lifestyle,

Which would be a shame,

Actually.

I hope this makes sense.

I hope I was able to explain myself to you.

If you have any questions,

Please do comment below,

And I shall do a follow-up to this.

And again,

Thank you so much for your support.

I shall see you the next time around.

Bye for now.

Reviews

I completely agree. It’s very hard to eat or socialise without being made to feel like you are in the wrong for not eating meat etc... I feel that I don’t want to associate with people who treat me differently for being a compassionate human. I’ve felt that I’ve grown out of certain friends now and moving to a different likeminded group of friends.

This was great and spot on about how people react when we change our diets. I’m almost 3 years into a whole food plant based lifestyle and I hear it all the time.... where do you get your protein, you need meat, you need dairy and the list goes on and on!! I’m getting healthier with each meal and they are getting sicker!! 😏😏😏