A realization I’ve been slowly internalizing is that I’m never going to feel fulfilled by the things I once believed would fulfill me.

In college, it was like—oh, if I join the right club, get the right internship, meet the right people, then my life would be set. It was an implicit form of the hedonic treadmill—a story I kept telling myself.

Underneath it all was this belief: I’m not enough yet. I don’t have what it takes to feel safe, secure, or adequate. If I just get into the right circles, master the right skills, check the right boxes—then I’d be “set.”

But that story was an illusion. No matter how many clubs, fellowships, classes, projects, or social scenes I went through, I never truly felt like I’d arrived.

The last time I genuinely felt a sense of arrival was in high school—when I got into the college I wanted and was simply enjoying the moments before graduation. Everything felt linear, measurable. I was “doing the right thing,” and my ego was fed because success had a clear definition: get into a good college.

The next time was senior year of college, when I landed a new grad job. Again, the formula was straightforward: get a job, secure the next milestone.

Then the roadmap ended.

Once adulthood started, everything felt open-ended. Beyond dating (because that’s the next logical milestone), there’s no one right way to live. Depending on who you hang out with, what’s “cool” completely changes.

Living in NYC and being surrounded by friends from different worlds dropped me into a confusing middle space. For some, life happens outside of work—through hobbies and experiences. For others, work is life because they love it. Some define success by the depth of their relationships. Others by building a following or making an impact. Some by health and fitness. Others by finding connection in a transactional city.

I was caught between all of them—a bit of FOMO, a bit of wanting everything.

“I want to have it all,” I’d tell my friend—a heads-down, hyper-focused grinder. He’d shake his head and say, “You can’t have it all. It’s all tradeoffs.”

The adult in me knew he was right. The stubborn kid in me didn’t want to accept it.

There had to be a way, I’d think. That’s a limiting belief. I don’t want to surrender. I am greedy.

The compromise I’ve made—or maybe just a way to make peace with myself—is: you can have it all. Just not all at once. I just need to know what season I’m in—and be okay with the tradeoffs.

But still. Even knowing that, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being stuck. Like I was moving but not getting anywhere.

“I want to feel like I’m thriving,” I’d say. What would that even look like? Maybe if I did this. Or that. Then I’d feel like I’m thriving.

But that logic felt familiar—it was the same old story: if I just joined the right thing, did the right thing, then I’d be on track.

During a meetup with others doing inner work, we did an exercise where someone would throw out a question, and the group would take turns asking thought-provoking questions back. I threw out: “How can I feel like I’m thriving?”

And the questions I got immediately reminded me why I’m doing this work: “What emotion are you trying not to feel by trying to thrive?”

Ouch.

That question pulled me out of my head and into my body. My tendency has always been to intellectualize—to stay in my head. But once I dropped into my body, I could feel it clearly.

That’s the feeling I’ve been trying to run away from. The feeling of not being enough. The feeling that drives me to do more, check more boxes, optimize every corner of life—just to not feel it.

But now I know: there’s no point resisting it. Because “it” isn’t the enemy. It’s just a part of me that was abandoned. And in a war with yourself, no one wins.

The reason I never felt like I arrived is because I never wanted to take that part of me with me. I never thought it was a part of me. I never let it in.

Even though it holds difficult emotions, it’s also what grounds me. It’s my connection to my younger self—the inner kid who was vulnerable, probably hurt, and not fully nurtured. It just became a shadow I never really took care of.

But now I’m an adult. I’ve done a lot of work on myself. I’m capable of nurturing and supporting it.

Living from my body, not just my head, makes life feel different. When everything is filtered through logic alone, life turns black and white. Yes, logically I should be doing this and that to optimize everything. But that way of living is one-sided and not sustainable.

You end up creating more illusions—stories like “When I do X, then I’ll finally feel Y.” You slip into management mode. And the inner critic just gets louder.

When I stay trapped in my head, things becomes overwhelming. Every thought turns into optimization, management, analysis.

When I’m connected to my body, I notice my instinctual yearnings—deep, expansive desires. Little things feel richer. There’s more color. More texture. More realness.

It’s not about throwing away goals or ambition. It’s about not running on dirty fuel. It’s about not feeding the inner critic that’s so used to lashing out. Not chasing an imaginary finish line that doesn’t exist.

After a few more rounds of questions, people threw out gems like:

“What if you’re already thriving?”

“What part of you believes you’re not already thriving?”

“If thriving didn’t require achievement, what would it look like?”

By the time it was my turn again, my original question faded away. I was much more in my body. And the question evolved into: “How can I just be?”

That refocus was grounding and visceral. Not the kind of grounded you get from meditation. But a deeper connection. A fuller alignment with parts of yourself that usually aren’t easily accessible.

Getting out of my head and into my body is something I’m doing more and more in my day-to-day. Sure, I might not be as effective or productive sometimes. But I’m not running on fumes anymore. My life isn’t “hyper-optimized,” but the little things are more enjoyable. There’s a texture and richness to the day-to-day that wasn’t there before.

And it’s not like I’m becoming complacent or stagnant. I still have things I want to do, goals I want to achieve. But now, they feel more grounded. More in touch with my deeper desires.

What we’re looking for has been within us all along. But to arrive, it requires the courage to walk through the discomfort—and to own the parts of ourselves we might be ashamed of, scared of, or tempted to abandon.

No amount of achievement or validation will outrun the parts of me I’m not willing to feel. When I actually feel them—and even learn to enjoy them—I stop chasing the imaginary safety that I’d never get anyway.

The sense of safety and arrival I’ve been chasing has been within me the whole time.