Selling out, or buying in?

I’m originally from the inner city of Detroit. I went to school in one of the most poor and gang infested neighborhoods in the city where dodging fights, bullets and even the police was as much a necessity as it was a way of life. Six months ago, I moved into the first suburb I’ve ever lived in. Even before I moved there, I had to answer questions about why I didn’t come home to Detroit. I even had to answer the question of how I could “sell out” after “being down” for so long. The truth is that the place that has always felt most like home to me, even now, is Laredo, TX where my family has resided for as far back as we can look. Detroit was home, but Laredo, and Nuevo Laredo in Mexico was my spiritual home. My cultural identity was shaped more by a city and my family who resided some 2,000 miles away, more than the people I saw every day. I wonder if my parents’ friends ever asked them why they sold out. I say all of this, not as a confessional, but rather as a rationale. If we’re honest with ourselves, every generation is just a little different than the one who came before it. Every sibling adds a slightly different spice to the stew that is our family. We love our grandparents, aunts and uncles precisely because they are a little bit different (sometimes we call it “cool”) than our own parents. In short, there is no such thing as a strict adherence to a single cultural identity within a family, club, religious order or neighborhood. Why then do we find ourselves asking and being asked about our adherence to the expectations of our families and friends? Is it because we’ve done something terrible? Or, could it be that we are defending ourselves against the co-dependent among us? Are our friends desirous of seeing that we stay the same so that they don’t have to confront the change that they, themselves should make in their own lives? I think it goes a step beyond this as well. I argue that by adhering to our own healthy boundaries that we can not sell out at all. By definition, we are instead contributing to the culture to which we belong or subscribe. I’ve told some of my clients that “you are the only person who you have to go to bed with and wake up with every day for the rest of your life.” Our spouses, children, parents, they’re on their own timeline and schedule as well. It is nice when these schedules coincide with health and vigor. But we are most indebted to our own needs. Thus, it is our own boundaries, which, when well-conceived and executed we must honor with greatest frequency. Doing exactly this, will shape our culture, our families and our neighborhoods so that others will see that following dreams and achieving goals is the true measure of success.