If it's not about me, it's certainly not about you

It took me a few minutes to realize why an article in The New York Times struck me so wrong. The more I read, the greater grew my sense of uneasiness. Even from the title—It's Not About You—it began to strike a very raw and angry nerve. Go read it first. Then, if it sits ill with you and you aren't completely sure why, come back and I'll explain what's wrong with the inherent implications.

If you live your life with the primary goal of finding personal happiness, you are selfish and self-centered.

I've heard it for so many years that the thought of rebelling against this idea still strikes me as wrong, that I'm wrong to want to be happy. That, as the writers states, I should "be called by a problem, and the self is constructed gradually by [that] calling" and "court unhappiness."

That kind of thinking is so hurtful because it masquerades as the one and only truth. What exactly is this lie?

Everyone is the same and should want the same things and lead the same type of life.

If it's wrong to want happiness, then why am I alive?

It's taken me much too long to recognize the insidious nature of this force-fed philosophy, but now that I'm shaking off it's hold, I'm so much more at peace with myself and my place in the world.

For years I did what a good girl was supposed to do. I graduated from college, got a decent and ridiculously low-paying job. But it was a stable job, with sick time and benefits, and even a 401(k). The problem? I was stifled. I didn't realize it at the time, but no matter what I did in any of my post-college jobs, it was never enough to make me happy. That standard of life confined me in a way I didn't understand for years. My life wasn't bad or terrible, but when I tried to limit myself to others' ideals, I wasn't complete, and I certainly wasn't happy.

If the columnist is to be believed, "fulfillment is a byproduct of how people engage their tasks, and can’t be pursued directly. Most of us are egotistical and most are self-concerned most of the time, but it’s nonetheless true that life comes to a point only in those moments when the self dissolves into some task."

So I mean nothing in this universe, and the only meaning I will come by is through menial tasks?

To that I say BS. Life is not an assembly line, nor was it ever meant to be. I'm done letting people tell me it is and making me feel inferior because my life doesn't fit with their scripted plans. So here is my answer to all the leaders and official-sounding people who, like this columnist, espouse the all-encompassing view that "the purpose in life is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself."

Leave me alone, and take your one-size-fits-all ideology with you.

You don't know me, and you never will if you think I have the same thoughts and wants and needs as every other human on this planet. I'm not nearly so simple, and I'd appreciate it if you kept your insidious guilt away from me.

Edited to soften some of the rantiness. Must remember to calm down, re-read before posting an impassioned argument.