For the first time, I felt accepted and understood by myself. I was fulfilled by my success and achievements. I had a beautiful family, cherished friends, love life blooming and my career path laid out for me.
It seemed like I had all the necessary elements to live the best year of my life.
Instead, everything fell apart.
Because the world does not want us to be fulfilled. The world want us to keep wanting.
Good is never good enough.
Slowing down means giving up.
We’re supposed to want to climb the ladder higher and higher and higher.
Graduating school is hardly admirable unless you do something with your degree.
Getting the job is a moment of joy until anxiety about keeping the job quickly replaces it.
Making art that touches people is euphoric, but can you do it again? Can you repeat your impact?
Millions of people watching the video you posted isn’t impressive these days, we’re supposed to want more.
More success, more streams of income, more important parties to attend.
More friends in high places, more help around the house, more steps in our skincare routine.
More likes, more money, more land, more babies.
There’s always another dream to chase
Isn’t that the dream we’ve been sold anyway?
Wanting, wanting, wanting.
What’s left once the chase is over, once the dream is realized?
I’ve had success. I’ve tasted it many times. But there was never a time to savior it. The threat of losing everything, always there to ruin my appetite.
And yet, I still craved.
I still wanted.
What I wanted was a break. A moment to enjoy my achievements without the stress of having to sustain them. To take back the light that had been drained from me. I wanted to feel passionate again. I wanted to take a deep breath again.
But what I really wanted, above all else, was for the wanting to stop.
It wasn’t like I got everything I wanted and realized it wasn’t enough.
I got everything I wanted and realized it was.
It was enough.
I was satisfied. I was content. I was happy.
And I refused to waste another moment of the now, in pursuit of the next.
So, I burned it all down.
Yes, everything fell apart. But the secret is that I was the one who lit the match.
The secret is that I wanted this too.
Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamt of being apart of the fashion world.
I envisioned a life jet setting to Paris, New York, Milan, styled by iconic designers. I imagined getting stopped for pictures on the red carpet.
Journalists asking me who I was wearing, wanting my opinions on the creative direction.
In my dreams, I was front row gossiping with Zendeya.
In the spring, someday finally showed up.
I was in Nice on a school trip when I was asked to go to the Cannes Film Festival. I would have to pay for it by all means, but it was everything I had wanted for so long.
The chance.
When it came to discussing details, I realized I would have to go alone. I don’t know why I never considered this in my 23 years of planning.
At this point in my life, I was very comfortable in my aloneness.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t go alone. I just didn’t want to.
Spending the night wandering the streets with my friends sounded more fun than a night of attempting conversation with celebrities and influencers who didn’t care who I was.
I told my teacher I didn’t want to go anymore.
She seemed shocked at my answer, and honestly, I was too.
I had waited my whole life for this opportunity.
This was my entry to the world I had always wanted to be a part of. This was my moment.
A moment my younger self would lose her mind over. I had the chance. And I didn’t take it.
I couldn’t figure out why.
I knew it would hurt.
I knew what people would say.
I knew my heart would ache when I was reminded.
But I also knew without a doubt that this was right for me.
In april, I joined my dad on one of his fishing trips and we found a spot a few hours before sunset, and we didn’t move until it was dark.
The view was so beautiful, so tranquil, so mesmerizing, we barely talked. My thoughts drifted with the rhythm of the clouds.
I tried to pinpoint exactly what I was feeling.
On one hand, peace like I had never experienced before.
When I look back on my life, I’ll always remember this year as a milestone of true self acceptance.
For two years, I worked to unlearn the belief that there was something wrong with me. It took practice and patience to rewire my brain. A lot of restarting. A lot of reminding that my purpose on earth isn’t to be likable.
But on that beach, I embodied the self worth I had tirelessly sought after.
So why did I still feel restless?
Despite my peaceful surroundings, I couldn’t ignore my anxiety humming in the background. I tried to ignore it, refusing to ruin such a perfect scene. But after awhile, I gave voice to the feeling.
And it simply said,
What’s next?
The hum of anxiety escalated into a ringing in my ear.
For months, I lived in that space of desperation.
I’ve never not known what I wanted out of life.
My dreams have always been vivid. But this spring, everything I had been reaching for, suddenly felt hollow.
The things I once wanted, no longer sparkling.
I couldn’t decide if this was a sign of contentment, or apathy.
In an attempt to reignite my creative fire, I returned to the things I knew I loved. Writing. Reading. Drawing. Scrapbooking. Music. Spending time with friends & family.
The effects were fleeting. By April, I had come undone.
Despite my attempts to rekindle my passions, I was blocked. I searched every corner of my soul for an answer, a reason, a sign. All of that rewiring of my brain, all of that work I did to accept myself, just to feel completely lost.
It didn’t make sense. There had to be something I was missing.
One night, a few days after our Nice trip, my teacher and I were talking. I knew she would have good perspective on what I was going through.
I finally just let it out.
“It makes me so unhappy not knowing what I want to do next.”
I wanted to swallow the words as soon as I said them.
Admitting I didn’t know what I wanted to do next felt like admitting all of my hard work was for nothing.
I told her about the last few months. How it haunted me to not know what I wanted anymore.
“I just don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
I said through tears.
She sat there and listened and after I finished, she said something I wasn’t expecting.
“Honestly Sofie, you went through a huge transformation this year. Just this spring alone with your values, your beliefs system, your faith in yourself. Beside that, this was a really important year because you opened the door to everything you want. You have endless opportunities! However there’s this job opportunity in Florida… I want to talk to you about.”
Time stopped while I processed these words. Before I could respond, she asked,
“Would you ever consider moving?”
And to be honest, I had. After that conversation I knew what I was going to do next and that’s where things finally clicked for me.
So…what did it mean? I never really understood everything until I stood face to face with what I didn’t want to do and what I so clearly wanted.
It’s not enough to be the best, you remain the best. It’s not enough to build a following, you have to stay relevant.
It’s not enough to climb the mountain, you have to spend the rest of your life avoiding the fall back down.
I began to see why I decided not to go to the Cannes Film Festival.
I wouldn’t just had been paying for to go to Cannes Film Festival.
I would also had been paying to be viewed in the world as a girl who could afford to go to Cannes Film Festival.
I would be paying on my part, out of a hollow sense of pride, accomplishment, security.
An identity.
Once the illusion was fully dissolved, it was easy to see that this identity was no longer useful to me.
I was holding onto something I thought I was supposed to want.
The tension I had been feeling all spring, was a result of my self acceptance. Not a sign of lack. Because once I accepted myself, once I had decided I was a good person, once I actually believed it,
My old dreams simply weren’t needed anymore.
The truth is, most of my dreams, for most of my life, have all revolved around how other people see me.
Maybe somewhere deep down there was an authentic desire to go to a film festival in person. Maybe that desire still exists. But I realized that the dominant desire wasn’t to go to a film festival. It was to be seen as a girl who went to celebrity events. I wanted to be perceived as a girl who is important enough to go. A girl with status, connections, taste. I wanted the photographic evidence that I was there, among special people.
The evidence of my own specialness.
Even my journal entries were written contemplating how people would react to it when I was dead.
I drove down the boulevard of broken dreams in my mind, and each one was similar.
They no longer resonated.
I didn’t need more followers. I didn’t yearn for relevance. I didn’t crave powerful connections and clout like I used to. There was no accolade or professional milestone that enticed me anymore.
My Miss Norway participation is another example entirely motivated by public opinion. It wasn’t about making myself proud, it was about proving myself to everyone else.
I thought that if an organization said I was successful, other people would see it too.
Clarity wrapped me up like a blanket and showed me that I didn’t need that validation anymore.
This was a gift I had given to myself.
My year of feeling directionless and lost wasn’t a punishment. It wasn’t a sign of apathy towards the things I once loved.
This whole time, it was a sign that I was stepping into my authentic self. The real me.
The things I love, the things I am passionate about, they’re still here. They’d just been muted by my old belief system.
The belief that I still had something to prove.
Clarity taught me that I no longer needed to be seen as a girl in the mix at an event to feel special.
The real me no longer needed to be seen as someone known. The real me no longer needed a publication to declare me a success. The real me no longer needed a title to give me a sense of identity in the world.
It was okay to say,
I don’t want these things anymore.
It was okay to let go.
Making the decision to not go was empowering. It led me to making several more important decisions.
By June, life as I knew it was unraveling.
And as the seams came undone, I felt the color coming back into my face.
Extra: There’s a girl I always think of when people ask me about success.
That girl is me, of my younger self, 10 year old me.
In the larger part of my life, this story symbolizes a core belief of not feeling good enough.
It marked a shift when my little girl hopes and dreams transitioned into the desire to be seen as someone special.
I think about what it would be like to actually have a conversation with her.
If I only had one chance to tell her about my current life, what would I say?
I knew one thing.
I wouldn’t tell her about making it in Miss Norway. I wouldn’t tell her about how many followers I have. The money in my bank account.
I would tell her about how she makes other people feel seen and special by her presence and words alone. How special she is for doing that.
I would also tell her about how she leads her life with her heart. To the fullest. And with everything. Boys, friends, passions, career path. It may end up wrong sometimes, but her heart is her truth.
I would tell her that she was good enough, all along.
In that moment, chocking back tears, I felt real fulfillment. This was the moment I decided I was a success.
Because what was I chasing if not to make my 10 year old self proud?
What publication or institution could validate my success when it was flashing right in front of my eyes?
The idea of success as we’re taught is a trap. It’s the belief that this is what life is supposed to be.
Wanting more, accumulating more, always striving for the next big thing. Believing that the next big thing will even fulfill us at all.
It’s the voice in your head that says, what’s next?
It’s giving up the authority to validate our own worth. Instead, placing it in the hands of a made up social construct.
Success as we’re taught is a trap, because the chase never ends.
The only way out, is to see right through it.
I hold all the power now. I get to decide what success means to me. I don’t need to keep chasing it. I already caught it. It’s mine to keep. It’s not something to keep losing and finding. It’s not my end destination.
Success to me, is freedom. It’s stopping to savor the moment. The ability to appreciate the moment. The ability to appreciate what I have, while I have it. Success is not burning out, not becoming jaded.
It’s having the courage to dream again.
The freedom to dream without the constraints of needing to prove myself.
Felix Poswolsky once said,
"I think we found the answer to the universe which was, quite simply,
Spend more time with your friends.”
And really, that’s all I want.
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