The Older I Get, the Less I Want to Prove

There was a time when I wanted to prove myself.

To my employer. To people around me. To relatives. To people who thought they knew what I should be doing with my life.

And, perhaps most importantly, to myself.

I wanted to earn more. I wanted to be successful. I wanted people to look at my life and think that I was doing well. I wanted to feel that I was moving ahead, even when I wasn't entirely sure where I was going.

For a long time, I thought this was simply what ambition looked like. Work harder. Earn more. Achieve something. Be respected. Keep moving. There was always another level to reach and another person to impress.

But the older I get, the more tiring that race becomes.

Not because I have stopped caring about doing well. I still care. I still want to build things, earn well, take care of my family and become better at what I do. But I no longer feel the same need to explain every decision or convince everyone that I am on the right path.

I have also realised that most people are far less interested in our lives than we imagine. They have their own worries, ambitions, insecurities and problems. The person spending hours trying to prove something may be the only person still watching.

That is a strangely freeing thought.

These days, I would rather have a life that feels right to me than one that looks impressive from a distance. I would rather have enough money and enough time than endlessly chase more of both. I would rather have a few genuine relationships than a large circle of people who barely know me.

Maybe growing older is partly about becoming comfortable with being misunderstood.

Some people will think you are too ambitious. Others will think you are not ambitious enough. Some will like your choices. Some won't. Eventually, you realise that trying to satisfy all of them is an impossible job.

So I am slowly letting go of the need to prove.

I don't need to prove that I made the right career decision. I don't need to prove that my life looks successful. I don't need everyone to understand why I choose simplicity over noise.

I just want to live a life that feels like mine.

And perhaps that is a better definition of success than the one I had when I was younger.