My Will Has Been Bought and Sold -- It's Anything But Free

Do any other adults out there still feel like they have to do what their parents tell them to do? I'm closing in on 31 and if my mother tells me to do something I feel like have to do it. And if I don't want to do it I have to figure out a way around not doing it. I can't just say, "No this is my life and I'll do what I want. What are you going to do to me? Spank me? Send me to my room? Ground me?" Of course not and yet despite there rationally being no repercussions I still do things that she wants me to do even when they're not in my best self-interest to do them. I think it's because for the first 18 years of life I was conditioned to do what my parents told me to do and now I can't not even if I don't want to. 18 years is alot of years. It takes the military less than a year of basic training to get people to take orders and walk into a line of fire. How do I stand a chance to say, "No, I don't want to sit in 2.5 hours of traffic to go to a distant relatives BBQ in North Jersey. Even though he is very very nice." I can't I just like a brain washed soldier just go.


And in other parental conditioning--

I purchased a burrito at a resturaunt the other day. I did not finish it. I then asked the waiter to wrap up the left overs. As I asked him to wrap it up I found myself trying to explain why I couldn't finish my meal. As if the waiter could give a shit. But I felt this guilt. Why? Because for years my parents would force me to finish my dinner. We'd sit at the kitchen table for hours night after night in a game of wills. I won a lot of those battles but, it seems that they won the war.