You cannot really please anyone

You might, however, if you are really lucky sometimes please yourself. And that just might be enough so you actually want to stay alive ongoing and have a really great life!

It took me until I was about 24 to 25 emotionally to fully realize what my parents wanted of me was not only unrealistic but also likely would cause me to commit suicide as a result. I think the moment I could say inside myself, "Fuck all you people who want me to be something I can't be and stay alive!"

At that point when I emotionally reached this point I could also say, "I'm going to survive no matter what! And I'm going to have a really great life of my own design completely, not anyone else's.

And I began to rebuild myself in my own image of reality. And this was really great! Because by the time I was 30 I was really happy and married and raising my son from my first wife and my two step kids from my 2nd wife's marriage and we were home schooling our kids through Oak Meadow School independent study and living really remote at 4000 feet on the side of Mt. Shasta a really idyliic kind of life that and my wife and I had always dreamed of. However, the kids missed TV a lot so we visited friends so they could also watch TV and visit friends and relatives about 30 or more miles away from where we lived very remotely.

But, the point here is "You cannot please anyone but possibly yourself!" And learning this before you self destruct emotionally or physically will decide whether you live to be 25 or 30 or more or not.

Though my parents were also very practical people they also believed in their religion that we were all going to stay young and beautiful forever. But, unless we are living in some kind of transcendence after the Singularity that Ray Kurzweil is talking about that just isn't going to happen (at least on earth).

P.S. I stayed close with my parents through all this because I didn't blame them for all this. They were sincere so all I had to do was to realize how they were impractical in this instance in regard to this and other things. In the end all life is an experiment anyway, and when people are sincere you have to give them the benefit of the doubt, especially if they are good parents of yours.