The Reward for Conformity (and Why It Nearly Broke Me)

"The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you but yourself."

I don't know who first said this, but I felt it in my bones the day I sat down for a status update meeting with my manager at Microsoft.

My heart was racing. Not the good kind of racing—the kind that comes with excitement or anticipation. This was the racing that happens when your body knows you're lying to yourself. When every cell in your being is screaming that you're in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing, living the wrong life.

I hadn't done the work. Not because I couldn't. Not because I was lazy. But because my mind had been consumed with stories I needed to write, thoughts I needed to capture, words that were clawing their way out of me. I'd suppressed the urge all week, showing up to my desk like a good employee, staring at code that felt increasingly meaningless.

Then came the meeting.

My manager's dissatisfaction was palpable. "You need to complete this sooner rather than later," he said. Translation: You're not performing. Get it together.

And sitting there, heart pounding, I asked myself a question that changed everything: Why do I have to work?

The answer came immediately: Because I need money.

But then another question: What would I rather be doing right now?

Writing. Creating. Exploring ideas that actually mattered to me.

That's when I realized I wasn't afraid of failing at my job. I was afraid of succeeding at a life I didn't want.

The Mask of Success

Here's what conformity looked like for me: saying "Yeah, I have a great job, I make lots of money, so why should I complain?" to anyone who asked. Showing up to family gatherings and acting happy about working at a prestigious company making more than six figures. Nodding along when people congratulated me on "making it."

Life looked perfect on paper. The kind of life I'd been programmed to want since childhood. Good job. Good salary. Path to a house, kids, stability. Execute the program. Check the boxes. Follow the script.

But inside? I felt like I was trapped in someone else's simulation.

The house felt like a prison I'd have to work forever to maintain. Kids—something I genuinely wanted when I got married—suddenly felt like another chain keeping me tethered to a life I was starting to hate. I realized I wasn't living my life. I was executing a program laid out for me by school, by my parents, by a system that never once asked me: Who are you? What do you actually want?

What I wanted was to explore the world. To write. To experience life instead of just surviving it.

But conformity doesn't ask what you want. It rewards you for staying in line.

The Hidden Cost

Everyone liked me. My family was proud. My peers saw me as successful. I had achieved what we're all told to achieve. And I hated myself for it.

That's the hidden resentment conformity creates. I resented the system for never giving me—or anyone in the low and middle classes—the space to figure out who we actually are. We're born to be cogs in the machine, worker bees with no room to diverge from the plan. And if we dare to try something different? The brain—programmed by years of conditioning—screams at us to stay safe, stay in the box, don't risk the unknown.

But I resented myself even more. I'd bought into it. I'd worked hard to achieve the "optimal career" without ever questioning if there was another way to live. I'd pushed aside people who didn't fit into my narrow, achievement-focused mindset—people I might have formed amazing connections with if I hadn't been so consumed with climbing a ladder I never wanted to be on in the first place.

Conformity cost me relationships. It cost me opportunities to move to other cities or countries in college because I wanted to stay close to home when those experiences might have helped me discover who I was much sooner. It cost me years of creativity, years of curiosity, years of actually living.

And for what? So everyone would like me except the one person whose opinion actually mattered: myself.

The Rebellion Begins

The first authentically terrifying thing I did was stop doing work. Just... stopped. Then I told the people closest to me that none of this matters. That we choose to work hard, not because we have to, but because we've been conditioned to believe we have no other option.

That didn't go over well.

I started telling people I didn't care about money because it's made up. That the systems we live by are mental cages designed to lock away our authentic desires and creativity. I started writing again—something that still scares me because there's always that faint voice asking: What if people feel betrayed? What if they judge you for changing?

But here's what I've learned: change is the only constant in this life. Look at nature. Look at our bodies. We're always changing from the moment we're born. Fighting that change—conforming to who we were told to be—is what breaks us.

I realized I'm not my thoughts. They're just echoes of programming placed on my subconscious to keep me in the box. But outside that box? That's where I might actually thrive.

I'd rather live one day free than a hundred years trapped.

This Blog Is My Rebellion

The Borderless View exists because I refuse to accept the reward for conformity anymore. I don't want everyone to like me if it means I can't like myself. I don't want approval if it costs me my authenticity. I don't want success if success means suffocation.

This blog is my rebellion against that reward. It's my commitment to living out loud, to questioning everything, to refusing the script. And it's my invitation to you to do the same.

Because here's the truth they don't tell you: the moment you stop conforming, you stop slowly dying inside. You start living. Messily, uncertainly, authentically. And yeah, not everyone will like you anymore. But you'll finally like yourself.

And that? That's the real reward.

Your Turn

So here's my challenge to you: do one authentically terrifying thing this week. Not something that scares you because it's dangerous, but something that scares you because it's real.

Tell someone what you actually think. Pursue something you want without explaining or justifying it. Stop doing something you've only been doing out of obligation. Write that thing you've been too afraid to write. Create that thing you've been too self-conscious to create.

Whatever it is, do it. Not for applause. Not for likes. Not for approval.

Do it because the reward for conformity is a life everyone else approves of but you can't stand.

And you deserve better than that.

Welcome to the rebellion.