It’s wild how a single detail can ruin the whole view.
You walk into the room and everything seems in place. It’s clean, stylish… Beautiful, even. But there… hanging right over the couch… one picture hangs just slightly off. Tilted, even if just the smallest bit. No matter how hard you try to ignore it… your eyes just can’t unsee it.
You can fix it though… a quick tweak to rebalance… that’s it! Step back. What the hell? It’s still off! Again, more adjustments. Still off. The angles look right, but no matter what you do, it just won’t sit level.
That’s how life felt for me.
From the outside, it really did look like the perfect picture: The steady work, the life partner, the structure, the routine. I kept thinking to myself… life should feel like a success.
Underneath, something just wasn’t sitting right.
Not loud, mind you. Not dramatic… at least at first. For some time, I simply felt this low-grade hum of discontent… like I was living in a version of life I was supposed to want, but somehow it just wasn’t mine.
I kept adjusting – schedules, goals, mindset… who I was, even. Told myself it was just a rough patch, a moment of doubt, something I could fix.
But no matter what I shifted… the feeling stayed off.
Over time, the adjustments – both big and small – began to create bigger frictions.
The tweaks I made never really worked, and my own frustration only grew worse. The discontent… the irritation…. the uncomfortable feeling of being in the wrong place… it all began to tear apart my inner self.
Eventually, I could no longer ignore it. I had to ask the hard question: What if it’s not the frame? What if it’s simply the wrong damn picture?
It took me a long time to admit that I wasn’t just an ungrateful asshole. I had to accept that I was truly misaligned.
For me… that made a big difference.
Sometimes we follow a script so well that we forget it wasn’t ours to begin with.
We chase the things we’re told will matter… and sometimes, we catch them. But what happens when you get there and it still doesn’t feel like enough? Maybe “enough” is the wrong word… maybe you have a better word.
Here lies the truth that’s hard to swallow:
You’re allowed to look at your “perfect” picture and realize… it’s not your picture. You’re allowed to want something that fits better.
It’s not failure. It’s not being “broken.” It’s just truth showing up.
You don’t have to burn it all down… at least not like I did. But you do have to take the old picture off the wall and ask yourself what you’d hang there instead.
If this resonates with you… let me ask you a few questions:
- What part of your life looks great from the outside… but feels a little off?
- What picture are you tired of straightening?
- And what would it take to stop pretending it fits?
Living fearlessly means you don’t owe anyone the illusion…
But you do owe yourself the truth.
No responses yet