You Built Your Own Cage From Other People's Expectations
What it actually costs to live by other people's rules.
If you love this content (please share it), but also check out my Podcast & connect with me on YouTube / Twitter.
We turn your favorite newsletters into podcasts at 10minmindset.org
Sponsor: Incogni
I can find your phone number, home address, and mother’s name in 2 clicks
Scary, right? One Redditor shared a chilling scam: “Someone called me, my ex, his girlfriend, my brother, my cousin, and my parents asking for me. He knew everyone’s names and even my workplace.”
Your data doesn’t vanish when you leave a job or move—it’s collected, archived, and sold. Unless you delete every exposed detail online, scammers can get it through data brokers, genealogy websites, and even your social media.
That’s where Incogni comes in. It tracks down and removes your personal data—from any site—and keeps removing it. Even when you move or change jobs, your info disappears for good.
Protect your privacy with Incogni. Use code SCOTTCLARY for 55% off Annual Plans and start removing your personal data today.
Dave Chappelle walked away from $50 million.
Comedy Central offered him the deal. Season three of his show. Guaranteed money. Peak of his career.
He said no. Flew to South Africa. Disappeared.
Everyone thought he lost his mind. His friends. His industry. The media ran stories about him having a breakdown.
Years later, he explained it simply: “The higher up I went, the more I felt like I was in a cage. I realized I could be rich in a cage, or I could be free and figure out money some other way.”
He chose freedom. And everyone called it crazy.
Because refusing the cage looks insane to people still inside it.
The Cages You Don’t See
You have invisible boundaries around your life that you didn’t set and probably didn’t notice.
They’re not physical. Nobody locked you in. There are no bars.
But try to cross them and watch what happens.
Tell your family you’re dropping out of the prestigious graduate program. Watch their faces.
Tell your friends you’re quitting your six-figure corporate job to start a business. Listen to their concerns.
Tell your partner you want to move across the country to pursue something that matters to you. Feel the resistance.
The cage appears immediately. Not through force. Through disappointment. Through warnings about being realistic. Through questions about what people will think.
Through the very real fear that if you step outside the boundaries, you’ll lose everything that feels safe.
This is how social cages work. No locks needed. Just the constant pressure of everyone around you reinforcing the walls.
You’re free to leave anytime. But leaving means disappointing people. Seeming irresponsible. Being called selfish.
So you stay. And call it being practical.
How the Cage Gets Built
You didn’t wake up one day and choose your boundaries. They were installed gradually.
“People like us don’t do that.”
“You should be grateful you even have that job.”
“What will people think?”
“You’re being irresponsible.”
“You’re throwing away everything you’ve worked for.”
“You’ll regret this.”
Every time you heard these phrases, a bar got added. Every time someone expressed concern about your choices, another wall went up.
And because these people care about you - your parents, your friends, your partner - you assume they’re right. They want what’s best for you. They’re protecting you.
But they’re not protecting you. They’re protecting the version of you that makes them comfortable.
Because when you change, their world has to adjust. And most people would rather you stay the same than deal with the discomfort of you becoming someone new.
What Actually Happened When I Left
I had a job everyone thought I was insane to leave.
Good salary. Prestigious company. Career trajectory that made sense. Every conversation about my future was just filling in the next obvious step.
Then I quit to write full-time.
Nobody understood. Not my family. Not my friends. Definitely not my colleagues.
The questions started immediately:
“What’s your plan?”
“How will you pay rent?”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“Why can’t you just do it on the side?”
“Don’t you think you should wait until you’re more established?”
Every question was a bar being reinforced. Every expression of concern was someone trying to keep me in the cage that made them comfortable.
The pressure was real. Not abstract. Real.
I felt it in every conversation. In every disappointed look when I explained my decision. In every awkward silence when someone asked what I did and I said “I write online.”
For six months, I questioned the decision daily. Not because it wasn’t working. Because everyone around me kept suggesting I’d made a mistake.
Then something shifted.
I stopped explaining myself. Stopped justifying the decision. Stopped trying to make people understand.
I just kept writing.
A year later, I was making more than my old salary. Two years later, I had built something that couldn’t exist inside the cage I left.
But here’s the thing: the people who questioned my decision didn’t suddenly celebrate when it worked. They just got quiet.
Because my success wasn’t about me anymore. It was a mirror showing them they could have left their cage too.
And that’s uncomfortable.
The Three Ways Cages Are Enforced
Social cages don’t need locks. They’re held in place by three forms of pressure that most people never see clearly.
Pressure 1: Disappointment as control
The most effective cage is built from the expectations of people you love.
Your parents expect you to finish the degree. Your partner expects you to stay in the stable job. Your friends expect you to keep living nearby.
None of them will say “you’re not allowed to leave.” They’ll just express disappointment when you try.
And disappointment is more powerful than prohibition. Because you can fight against someone telling you no. But you can’t fight someone who’s just “concerned” or “worried” or “scared for you.”
So you stay. Not because you want to. Because leaving means carrying the weight of their disappointment forever.
Pressure 2: Social proof as reality
When everyone around you is following the same path, that path feels like the only path.
Everyone you know has a traditional career. So building a business feels impossibly risky.
Everyone you know is married with kids by thirty. So not wanting that feels like something is wrong with you.
Everyone you know stayed in their hometown. So leaving feels like abandoning your roots.
But social proof isn’t truth. It’s just consensus. And consensus is usually just the most common form of cowardice.
The fact that everyone is doing it doesn’t mean it’s right. It often just means everyone is too scared to do something different.
Pressure 3: Identity as obligation
The most subtle cage is the one built from who people think you are.
You’re “the responsible one.” So making a risky decision contradicts your entire identity.
You’re “the successful one.” So stepping back from a prestigious position feels like failure.
You’re “the family person.” So prioritizing your own goals over family obligations feels selfish.
These identities weren’t chosen by you. They were assigned by others based on how you’ve behaved in the past.
And the moment you try to act outside that assigned identity, everyone around you will remind you “that’s not like you.”
But who you were is not who you have to be. The only person holding you to that identity is you.
What Refusing Looks Like
Refusing the cage isn’t one dramatic moment. It’s a series of small choices where you pick what you want over what people expect.
You stop explaining your decisions to people who’ve already decided you’re wrong.
You stop asking for permission from people who will never give it.
You stop trying to make people comfortable with choices that make you free.
This doesn’t mean burning bridges. It means accepting that some people will be disappointed, and that’s not your problem to solve.
When I left my job, I had family members who didn’t speak to me for months. Friends who stopped inviting me to things because my choices made them question their own.
That hurt. But here’s what I learned: the people who can’t handle you changing weren’t supporting the real you anyway. They were supporting the version of you that fit their expectations.
And losing support for a version of yourself you don’t want to be isn’t actually losing anything.
The Cost of Staying vs. The Cost of Leaving
Every cage has a cost to leave. That’s real.
You might disappoint people. You might lose relationships. You might fail at the thing you’re pursuing.
But staying has a cost too. And nobody talks about it.
The cost of staying is who you never become. The things you never build. The life you never live.
It’s waking up at forty-five realizing you spent twenty years living someone else’s version of your life.
It’s the constant low-grade resentment toward everyone who kept you in the cage, even though you’re the one who chose to stay.
It’s the growing distance between who you are and who you could have been.
People treat leaving the cage like it’s the risky choice. But staying is a risk too. You’re just betting that living according to other people’s expectations will eventually feel like enough.
It won’t.
What You Need to Accept
If you want to refuse the cage, you need to accept some uncomfortable truths.
Most people will not understand your choices. Not because they’re bad people. But because your freedom threatens their cage.
When you step outside social boundaries, you become evidence that the boundaries are optional. And that makes everyone still inside uncomfortable.
Some relationships will not survive. The ones that required you to stay small will end when you refuse to shrink anymore.
That’s not a bug. That’s the feature. The relationships built on who you were supposed to be instead of who you are were never going to work long-term anyway.
You will face real consequences. Financial pressure. Social isolation. Uncertainty about whether you made the right call.
But here’s what nobody tells you: you’ll face consequences either way.
Stay in the cage, face the consequence of never becoming who you could be. Leave the cage, face the consequence of disappointing people who wanted you to stay.
At least one of those consequences comes with freedom.
The Cage Is Unlocked
Here’s the truth most people spend their entire lives avoiding:
The cage was never locked. There are no actual bars. No one can physically force you to stay.
The only thing keeping you inside is your unwillingness to disappoint people. Your fear of being seen as irresponsible. Your need to maintain relationships that require you to stay small.
That’s it. That’s the whole cage.
And the moment you’re willing to accept that some people will be disappointed, the cage disappears.
Not because it was never real. But because it only ever existed through your agreement to stay inside it.
Dave Chappelle walked away from fifty million dollars because he understood something most people never figure out:
The cage doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else. You just have to be willing to leave.
So stop waiting for permission. Stop trying to make people understand. Stop looking for the moment when leaving feels safe and everyone supports you.
That moment isn’t coming.
The cage is unlocked. It always was.
You’re just pretending it’s not so you don’t have to deal with what happens when you walk out.
Thank you for reading.
– Scott
My Links