I’ve had an intellectual understanding that I don’t have to do things, but I’ve recently realized that it was tethered to old beliefs. I don’t have to visit my grandmother if I’m willing to be a bad granddaughter/bad person.
or I don’t have to buy my friend a birthday present if I’m willing to be a shitty friend.
I’m freshly looking at a new version of I don’t have to
which is just a literal seeing of reality without the tether. I don’t have to clean up my stepmother’s hoarding house after she dies.
It’s just true, I literally don’t have to.