Breaking The Rules

There’s a particular kind of anxiety that doesn’t come from chaos, but from control. It’s the the sinking fear that simply feeling resistant to the tasks of life means something is wrong with you. It’s the feeling of guilt when you don’t meet an expectation, even if that expectation is arbitrary.

From an early age, many of us learn that compliance isn’t just convenient—its morally “right.” A well-behaved child is praised; a defiant one is reprimanded. A student who follows directions is responsible; one who questions the rules is disruptive. Over time, this turns into something even deeper: a belief that if we feel frustrated, angry, or resistant in the face of control, we must be the problem. If a rule doesn’t make sense to us, we assume we just don’t understand it well enough. If an authority figure makes us anxious, we assume we must be doing something wrong.

This way of thinking often follows us into adulthood. At work, an unfair policy might feel stifling, but rather than questioning whether the policy itself is flawed, we wonder if we’re just being difficult. In relationships, we might feel guilty for having needs, for speaking up, for wanting something different than what is expected of us. Even in moments of private frustration, the voice in the back of our mind says, Why are you like this? Why can’t you just go along with it?

Take an early example, one my partner and I are currently navigating: a crying baby and sleep training. When an infant wakes at night, fussing for comfort, we treat this as a “problem” to be solved. But there is nothing inherently wrong with a baby wanting to be held, comforted, or reassured during the evening hours. It only becomes a problem because parents are exhausted or need sleep themselves. If parents had unlimited support or a system designed around the baby’s needs rather than adult schedules, nighttime fussiness wouldn’t be seen as disruptive at all.

This isn’t to say that discipline in schools is bad or that sleep training is inherently wrong. In many cases, they help create structure and function. But it does shift the focus away from labeling an individual as entitled, needy, or difficult and toward an understanding that what is considered “disruptive” is often just a misalignment between natural human behavior and the demands of a system.

The difficulty is that we don’t just experience these pressures externally—we internalize them. We don’t need to be told to feel guilty for breaking a rule; eventually, the guilt arises on its own. We don’t need someone standing over us enforcing compliance; eventually, we enforce it ourselves. And once this pattern is in place, questioning authority feels not only uncomfortable but wrong.

If we push back against an expectation, we assume we’re at fault, not the expectation itself. If we feel resistance to control, we assume we must be immature, irresponsible, or incapable of handling reality. But reality is more complicated than that.

At a societal level, authority structures exist for a reason. Schools need some level of order. Workplaces need structure. Laws are in place for collective safety. But not all authority is the same, and not all rules serve the people they govern. There is a difference between structure that supports well-being and structure that exists purely for efficiency or power. The question isn’t whether authority is good or bad, but whether it respects individual autonomy or suppresses it.

Of course, not all disruptive behavior is harmless. Some rules exist for ethical reasons, not just convenience. But too often, we conflate what is harmful with what is merely inconvenient. A child who is loud and cannot soothe on their own is not the same as one who is “undisciplined.” An employee questioning a policy is not the same as one refusing to do their job. A person asserting a need in a relationship is not the same as one disregarding the needs of others. Yet, we are often taught to react to all of these as if they are equally problematic.

There’s also the risk of taking this perspective too far, of replacing one form of blame with another. If we say the problem isn’t the individual but the system, aren’t we just shifting blame from the person to the authority figure? But the point isn’t to create a new scapegoat—it’s to see the full picture. Instead of asking, Who is at fault? we can ask, How did this dynamic develop? Instead of demanding that individuals always conform or that authority always be rejected, we can ask, Where is there room for adaptation?

Breaking free from the anxiety of control doesn’t mean rejecting all structure. It doesn’t mean rebellion for rebellion’s sake. It means learning to recognize when our resistance is a sign that something outside of us is misaligned, rather than a sign that something inside of us is broken. It means giving ourselves permission to question the things we once assumed were just the way the world works.

Instead of assuming discomfort is proof that we are wrong, we can learn to see it as information—an invitation to look deeper. Maybe it isn’t you that’s the problem, but the arbitrary rules you’ve adopted that no longer serve you.