How letting go of my craving for uniqueness gave me back my life
It’s easy to confuse visibility with value. I didn’t realize I’d done that until the applause I thought I needed started sounding like static.
I had built a life on making an impression. I don’t mean fame or followers or any of the easy metrics. I mean that internal scoreboard—silent, persistent, constantly measuring whether I was significant enough. Whether I was doing something interesting enough. Whether I was someone people remembered after they left the room.
At first, I told myself it was purpose. Meaning. Impact. The grown-up buzzwords that dress up insecurity in a pantsuit. But that wasn’t it. I wasn’t chasing fulfillment. I was chasing proof. Proof that I was exceptional.
If I was honest, I didn’t want to be happy. I wanted to be irreplaceable.
The thirst to be special is socially acceptable self-abandonment.
No one calls it that. We call it being driven. Or passionate. Or “just a little Type A.” But underneath it all? It’s a grind powered by fear. Because when your worth depends on being a standout, you’ll never feel allowed to be still.
Stillness, after all, looks a lot like being forgotten.
I didn’t clock this right away. I had a well-meaning obsession with growth, but the kind that doesn’t let you sit down. The kind that insists if you’re not creating, evolving, or adding value, you’re disappearing. And if you’re disappearing, well—then you’re no one.
That belief ran so deep I didn’t even question it. Until one day, I stopped mid-scroll, mid-post, mid-mental-narration, and thought: I don’t want to do this anymore.
Not in a burnout, throw-the-phone-across-the-room way. In a quiet, almost anticlimactic way. The kind of honesty that doesn’t feel like a breakthrough. It feels like finally telling the truth after months of lying to yourself politely.
Being special was supposed to liberate me. It just made me tired.
There’s a sneaky arrogance in thinking you’re meant to be different. Not arrogant in the flashy way—arrogant in the subtle, self-imposed-pressure way. You start thinking ordinary joy is for other people. You become allergic to ease. You pick the harder path because ease won’t look impressive on a résumé, or in a caption.
But when everything you do is curated to mean something, nothing feels like yours anymore. Not even your happiness.
At some point, being “exceptional” started to feel more like exile. The kind you signed up for, then realized you couldn’t leave without people noticing.
That’s when I started grieving.
Grieving the years I’d spent trying to be a brand instead of a person. Grieving the gentle, boring, beautiful parts of life I had overlooked in the name of “standing out.” Grieving the joy of doing something just because I wanted to, without having to turn it into a narrative arc.
You don’t have to be special. You just have to show up.
I wish someone had told me that sooner. That your value doesn’t expire when you rest. That you don’t need to be rare to be radiant. That there is nothing shameful about being ordinary. In fact, ordinary is where people actually connect with you. It’s where you belong to your life again—not as the architect of your image, but as the person living inside it.
I still have moments where I want to be noticed. Sometimes I still dress up insecurity and call it inspiration. But now, I can feel it. I can laugh at it. I can ask it kindly to sit down.
Because I’m not performing anymore. I’m living. Without needing to be liked. Without checking the mirror for meaning.
Maybe the opposite of special isn’t failure. Maybe it’s freedom.
I’m not aiming to leave a legacy anymore. I’m aiming to feel at home inside my own skin.
No more contorting. No more content strategy on my soul.
Just breath. Just presence. Just the ordinary miracle of being here, enough, without a headline.
So beautifully written and expressed.
Thank you.