Prompt – A rule you did not understand but followed anyway.
As a child, because I said so had a different flavor in my house. It showed up inside the command, Do what you are told, when you are told, and how you are told. I always wondered where the who and the why disappeared to in that little piece of military mantra nonsense. Every time I asked, the answer never arrived in words. It arrived through clenched teeth and lips pulled tight, the way a body looks when the mortician fucks up, followed by insults sharp enough to make my questions feel like crimes. The message was simple. Obey. And at the time, that is what I did.
Growing up under that rule taught lessons no curious child is meant to learn. I learned that questions were dangerous and not appropriate. I learned that curiosity was rude. I learned that authority did not need to make sense because authority owned the room. I began to shrink my voice. I memorized the script. I moved with a fixed response instead of a living person, at least inside the walls of my house.
Later, when I stepped into other systems as an adult, I recognized that same mantra living under different names. I saw it forcing its way into classrooms. I saw it showing up in workplaces built on top-down structures that pretended to be leadership. I saw it sitting quietly inside families that claimed love while everyone hid the truth. Do what you are told. When you are told. How you are told. It sounded efficient. It sounded orderly. It sounded like discipline. But beneath all of that shine, it trained me to doubt me and silence my own gut.
As a kid, I obeyed, even when nothing made sense. Obedience created quiet. It created peace, or at least the illusion of peace. But, like all things, there was a cost. What I believed to be obedience was actually just braided fear and respect until both looked the same. Obedience convinced me that the loudest voice in the room must also be the smartest. Obedience placed me inside someone else’s version of right and wrong.
I followed that rule because I believed it made me good. A good child. A good son. Much later, I began to notice the cracks. The whole thing felt like a performance. It was less about obedience and more about fear. Fear that if even one of us asked too many questions, the fragile idea of family might shatter and reveal what was already broken.
Real families ask questions. Real families sit in the discomfort of truth. Real families refuse to treat because I said so as a final answer. It took years for that realization to settle into my bones. My life’s work has become the practice of asking why, again and again, and creating spaces where others feel safe asking as well. And I am grateful to report that the world does not collapse when why is asked. The opposite happens. Everything begins to breathe.
Muddled Soma 