I was 29 when a therapist asked me: "What do you enjoy? Not what are you good at — what do you enjoy?"
I could not answer. I sat there for what felt like a very long time. I could list my achievements. I could list my responsibilities. I could list what I was supposed to want.
But what I actually enjoyed? For myself, with no audience, with no goal attached?
Blank.
I had spent so much of my life optimizing for external approval — for family expectations, for professional milestones, for what success was supposed to look like — that I had never developed a relationship with my own preferences.
I did not know what music I genuinely liked when no one was watching. I did not know what kind of food I craved versus what I ordered because it was appropriate. I did not know if I was naturally an early person or if I had forced myself into mornings because hustle culture said so.
The work of the following two years was not grand or dramatic. It was quiet and strange: learning my own tastes. Trying things and noticing if I liked them. Becoming my own person instead of the sum of other people's expectations.
I am still in progress. But I know what I enjoy now. And that is more significant than it sounds.
I could not answer. I sat there for what felt like a very long time. I could list my achievements. I could list my responsibilities. I could list what I was supposed to want.
But what I actually enjoyed? For myself, with no audience, with no goal attached?
Blank.
I had spent so much of my life optimizing for external approval — for family expectations, for professional milestones, for what success was supposed to look like — that I had never developed a relationship with my own preferences.
I did not know what music I genuinely liked when no one was watching. I did not know what kind of food I craved versus what I ordered because it was appropriate. I did not know if I was naturally an early person or if I had forced myself into mornings because hustle culture said so.
The work of the following two years was not grand or dramatic. It was quiet and strange: learning my own tastes. Trying things and noticing if I liked them. Becoming my own person instead of the sum of other people's expectations.
I am still in progress. But I know what I enjoy now. And that is more significant than it sounds.
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