Fed up with always having things I have to do

When I was young, I was told “just study, studying will give you the ticket to freedom”.

When I was in Uni, I was told “just continue until you graduate, once you graduate you can do everything”.

Now that I’m done Uni, it’s “just do any job that even though you hate, just do it, the job market is shit and just take anything you can”.

Or “in your 20s move somewhere because you’re only young once and you have no dependencies”

But this will never end, will it? It’ll become “just marry the guy that’s stable, you’re getting old” or “don’t quit the job, you need to buy a house for your children”… etc.

I know there are truth in these statements but it just feels like every time in life I’m working towards a certain truism that people always say and I never get the satisfaction from it. Because I’m always doing something that others say it’s good to do. Enter a good Uni and just persevere and graduate, they said. Go abroad and be resilient even though you’ll be lonely most of the time, they said. Stay at your job even though it’s so tiring because what else can you do, they said.

It’s not even that I want to defy societal conventions. It’s that I want to do things at my own pace, at my own time, figure out what I like, without all these so-called milestones being served me to as propaganda. And I’m not even just talking about those “study hard, get a good job” propaganda. I’m also talking about that “exchange abroad is the best thing you’ll ever experience, you’ll never get the same experience after leaving Uni” propaganda. Like what’s supposed to be fun or whatever or what we should do is all kind of written in stone.

Idk, has anyone felt this way? I’m so tired of trying to pretend that following the advice of others actually work for me.