Funny How

Funny how we went from dreaming of corner offices to dreaming of Tuesday afternoons with nothing scheduled, from fantasizing about titles that would make our parents proud to fantasizing about silence, about time that belongs to no one but us.

We used to draw pictures of ourselves in white coats, in courtrooms, in boardrooms, certain that success would look like framed degrees and firm handshakes, like corner windows and business cards with our names embossed in gold.

Now we just want to breathe without counting the cost, want mornings that don't start with dread, want to feel the sun without checking what it's costing us in productivity.

Funny how ambition softened into longing, how “I want to be somebody” became “I want to feel like myself again,” how we traded fancy titles for the luxury of just being okay, of just being free.

We used to measure worth in salaries and promotions, now we measure it in how many days we felt like ourselves, how many hours we spent laughing instead of striving, how much lightness we let into lives that got so heavy so fast.

Maybe growing up isn't about reaching higher, maybe it's about learning what actually holds weight, not the job title, not the paycheck, not the version of success we were sold before we knew what we actually needed.

Funny how the dream got simpler as we got wiser, how “impressive” turned into “peaceful,” how we stopped wanting to be admired and started wanting to just feel alive.

Maybe that's not giving up. Maybe that's finally arriving somewhere real.