When I look back over the last 15 years of my life, I can see there was a quiet thread running through much of it.
A desire for my life to matter. A desire to feel like I mattered.
I’m genuinely proud of how hard I’ve worked, and for what I’ve built and accomplished. And more than anything, for how I stayed with it through some of the hardest and loneliest periods of my life.
I do believe that when we work toward something, we experience a sense of purpose. In many ways, we create meaning by doing things that feel worthwhile to us.
So this reflection isn’t meant to take away from any of that. If anything, I feel grateful for the challenges and the growth that came with them.
When success starts to mean more than it should
Where my most meaningful growth has happened, though, is in realizing that these things can matter, but they aren’t everything.
There was a time when I found myself drawn to a certain version of life. Wanting to be in elevated rooms. To be around a particular crowd. To have access to money, status, and recognition.
Not just because those things were appealing, but because if I’m truly honest, somewhere underneath, there was a belief that they would make me feel like I mattered. Like I was somehow more worthy.
And I don’t think that belief is uncommon.
Seeing through it
Here’s the thing nobody tells you.
You get the thing. And you feel… nothing. Or close to nothing. Maybe good for about ten minutes. And then it’s over. And you’re standing there thinking, wait, that was it?
I’ve had that experience more times than I’d like to admit. The thing I’d been building toward, the room I finally got into, the recognition I was fantasizing about. And then the flatness that followed.
At some point I started looking around at the people who had achieved a lot, people I had once put on a pedestal, and realized they were just people. With their own insecurities, their own quiet struggles, their own internal worlds that weren’t visible from the outside. Many of them likely just wanted to be seen for something beyond their success.
There isn’t a threshold where you suddenly feel worthy. Not because of what you own, where you live, or how you’re perceived.
What actually changed
I was chasing things I believed would make me feel worthy, when in reality, I was already worthy. It’s simple, and it’s a cliché. But it’s true.
That sense of worth doesn’t come from what you build or what you earn. Worth is something you come to understand, and eventually feel in yourself. And the frustrating thing is you can’t get there by achieving more. You kind of have to stop.
Letting go and what happens after
When I started letting go of the idea that those things would define me, something unexpected happened.
The things I had spent years grinding for weirdly started to land in my lap with more ease. Which is great, but the difference is they no longer held the same weight. Some things still felt aligned. Many didn’t at all. And fortunately, I had the clarity to choose what actually fit, rather than continuing to chase something that was never going to deliver what I thought it would anyway.
Enjoying it without needing it
It’s more than okay to want nice things and to enjoy them. Life is short. Why not enjoy the finer things in life if that’s what you want?
But there’s a difference between enjoying something and needing it to prove something. The holiday that’s just a holiday. The achievement that feels good and that you can be proud of without it hinging on your entire sense of self.
The striving, the proving, the quiet belief that the next thing would finally be enough. That stuff is exhausting. And it never delivers.
When I feel best, it’s rarely when I got the thing I thought would change everything.
It’s usually in the unexpected moments. The ones I didn’t plan for. The times I pushed through something hard and came out the other side feeling like, wow, I actually did that.
Buy the nice thing. Just know it won’t change your life.