what society forces us to do v.s what we should do

[awein999]

I'm in school and I'm heading to my history class. I see one of my friends in the library is distressed and upset. I go over and spend a few minutes comforting him. This makes me late to history and I get in trouble. I did the right thing, putting some one elses feelings above what society is telling me I should have done.

shouldn't we live only by what we see in ourselves rather than the influence of others all around us? There should be no one telling me how to behave. No teachers telling me to comform, no parents telling me to act a certain way, no siblings telling me how to be. We learn best from ourselves and our own faults. School trains us to always be on task and never to sin. I think this is the opposite of what life should be. We learn from the act of sinning. Without sinning and the ability to reflect upon it, we are nothing but empty shells worried about our petty problems.

ok got it but it's impossible to live as a true transcendentalist in this society because I must conform to an extent to what society believes is right because I won't be able to go to a good college or have a definitie future. I can't tell my Spanish teacher, "I don't have to organize my notebook." or "this is pointless to organize the way you tell me to. I would know what is best for me, not you.", because I'll fail the class (notebook is 30% of our grade and she surely would not want to give me a good grade in other things after hearing me say that) and I won't be able to get into a good college and I'll dissapoint people around me. Of those of you who have addressed this issue what do you do about it? It is impossible to be a true transcendentalist but I don't want to blindly follow all aspects of society even when it is clearly wrong.