The Greatest Thing in the World Is to Know How to Belong to Yourself When was the last time you made a decision without worrying what other people would think? Not a big decision necessarily. Maybe just what you wanted for lunch. Or whether to skip a party. Or what to say in a meeting. Small moments where you caught yourself editing your instincts before anyone else even heard them. We all do it. The self-censoring, the second-guessing, the mental arithmetic of approval. And somewhere in all that noise, we lose track of a quieter question: What do I actually want? This isn't a new problem. Your grandparents wrestled with it. Your parents still do. But each generation faces a different version of the same struggle—how to stay true to yourself while living among other people. What It Actually Means Belonging to yourself doesn't mean becoming a hermit or refusing to care what anyone thinks. That's just rebellion for its own sake, and it gets exhausting. It means knowi...
There’s a special kind of silence that happens when someone asks, “So… do you like your job?” and you respond with a smile so tight it could slice cheese. If you’ve ever done that little nod-shrug combo that means “Well, I don’t hate it, but I’m also spiritually elsewhere,” this post is for you. A job you don’t love is not a personal failure, nor is it a life sentence. It’s a stage—sometimes a confusing one—where you’re trying to figure out whether you’re on a stepping stone or just standing in a swamp. Here’s how to make the journey less swampy and more meaningful. 1. Stop Waiting for Passion to Strike Like Lightning People talk about “finding your passion” as if it’s a rare Pokémon that appears if you wander the right patch of tall grass. But passion isn’t discovered. It’s built. One of my friends started her career in an accounting department she described as “the emotional equivalent of eating plain oatmeal every day.” Fast forward three years: she’s now the go-to person for solvin...