It’s Okay to Outgrow the Life You Thought You Wanted

Rather than sticking to the script we assigned ourselves (or our structures and society assigned us), maybe we can imagine who we are, what matters to us, and what we need without focusing on “growing into” the next big thing. Maybe we can look at ourselves-as-is, rather than the ones we envisioned becoming. That’s the place everything else grows f... See more

renegotiating what we want with ourselves shouldn’t be an inherent taboo, a signal that we’ve ventured off track or away from the plan. In a way, it’s letting ourselves expand and shift as our circumstances or priorities or ideas of what it means to live a “good life” do.

We’re used to outgrowing things that no longer fit. What about when we outgrow everything we thought we were supposed to want?

When we orient so much of our lives around a certain kind of life — whatever version of that we thought we wanted — it can be startling to realize we may not actually want that anymore. It’s another life transition, another means of becoming ourselves.

Sometimes, learning what you don’t want might be as important as discovering what you do. That’s growing, too.

Often, there’s a desire to cling onto how we thought life should go, sometimes until it outweighs the reality of how it is going — what makes us happy, versus what we feel should; what is truly stimulating or fulfilling, versus what we’ve been told should be chased and sacrificed for. A question I ponder is: How do we untether ourselves from the pe... See more