You Have The Right Not To Make Your Parents Proud

There are thousands of questions from young people on the Internet, who are uncertain whether they should prioritize their own needs and dreams, or do what their parents (families) want, or expect from them.

How do I convince my parents to let me pursue my career in the fitness industry?
How will you break the news that you want to be an artist rather than a doctor? I have really non-cooperative parents who don’t understand.
How do you handle your parents once you're twenty years old, and they don't understand your choices in life?
Should I follow my passion or my parents’ dream?
How can I convince my parents that I don't want to marry, without hurting them?
Is it selfish of me to pursue my own path in life rather than the one my parents have worked hard to provide for me?
What can I do when my dad makes his own plans about my future but I have my own?
Our parents are not accepting our love. What should we do?
I am a Muslim girl and I want to leave my religion. My parents will never talk to me. Do you think I should leave?
I'm 13, and I want to be a magician, but my mom is completely against it. She takes my cards, and discourages me from doing magic. What should I do?
Should I do what I want to do or what my parents want me to do?
I don't want to go to college, but my parents want me to. What should I do?
How do you say no to your parents?
How do I deal with my parents expectations?
My parents control my life, they blackmail me and I am so unhappy with my life, what should I do?
I want to start a career that my parents won't let me do. What should I do?
How do I convince my parents to let me become an actor?
How do I tell my dad that I don't want to follow in his career footsteps?
I am 21 years old girl. I want to remain single throughout my life. My family wants me to live a married life. How do I convince them?
If you were to choose between family and freedom (of thoughts and action), what would you choose and why?
How do you keep your family from pressuring you into life and career decisions that you don't want to make?
My parents threatened to disown me if I don't pick a STEM major. How do I convince them otherwise?

Those are a few examples of the questions I answered on Quora in the past six months. If I wanted to answer them all, I guess I would need to write non stop for the next couple of years. And there are hundreds of those questions being added to this forum each day.

I noticed a pattern. Those who ask the questions worry that by making their independent life choices they will upset their parents or whole families.

Turns out even having thoughts about being different than your parents (most of your family) seems risky. The imprint you have since childhood, the beliefs you soaked up, the taboo aura - you can be 100% sure those things will make you feel bad about having those thoughts.

And being different than your parents and other members of your family is way more dangerous. You might get rejected, disowned, kicked out. You run a great risk of being hated on. You become one of those bad people (traitors, black sheep). You as a person are a problem and a source of many problems. And that’s enough of a reason for you to feel guilty, or be ashamed of yourself.

But why?

Is this fear of being different or even discussing problematic issues that arise in families all over the world something we should accept as inevitable? Should we watch as young adults, generation after generation, yield to the family pressure, because they lack coping mechanisms (alternative narratives)?
Can’t we challenge those fears and beliefs? Why shouldn’t we do something in order to eliminate those fears and start living the lives we want?

That’s why I decided to break this taboo and talk about things almost nobody talks about.

I'm confident that this book can change young people's lives, enabling them to live their lives the way they want, not the way their parents or other members of their families want.