Being around your age, I too have recently found myself reflecting on this, and I believe there is some grey area here which you don’t touch on. Doing what you ‘want’ without thinking about what you ‘should’ be doing can have consequences for the people around you. Thinking about yourself as an integral part of a community, as opposed to a single person in a self-reliant population, can be hard; especially when you live in a large city such as NY (I live in Los Angeles myself). However, when you start breaking communities down into smaller segments such as personal connections, it is easier to start seeing situations where what you do has an impact on the people around you. Suppose a family member got sick and other family members decided to pool money together to get them help, and you’re not able to contribute because you sacrificed an income for your personal endeavors. Honestly, I think this individualist line of thinking is very ‘first-world’ (as related to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs), but if everyone did what they wanted to do instead of what they should do, society would start to break down. Think of all the people that only have the opportunity to do what they want because someone else, like their parents, did what they should and were able to support them.

I believe there are things you should do, whether you want to or not, and many of these things you should do are things adults (with more life experience) harp on you about throughout your adolescence. Following societal norms isn’t just about being a sheep, many of these norms have evolved into what they are out of the necessity to survive as a community.

Sorry if this sounds like a rant, or if it rambles along too much.

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I tend to play this out to its fullest, thoroughly apologizing, loudly, and trying to draw as much attention from other passengers, so when the guy’s facade falls through, they all know about it.

Besides the your, YES.