The Lie We Tell Ourselves About Becoming

Everyone talks about becoming.

Becoming great. Becoming successful. Becoming the “best version” of yourself.

But what if becoming isn’t the point?

We spend our lives climbing toward some imagined summit, convinced that clarity lives at the top. That once we arrive, we’ll finally know who we are, what we want, and why it all mattered.

But no one tells you this: the mountain keeps moving.

And every time you think you’ve reached something solid, it shifts under your feet.

That job title. That milestone. That moment of validation. You touch it, and it dissolves.

You’re back in freefall.

So we double down. Chase harder. Hustle more. Read more. Optimize everything.

And still we carry the same quiet ache.

Not because we’re lost. But because we’re addicted to the illusion of arrival.

But maybe it’s not about becoming.

Maybe it’s about unbecoming.

Letting go of the versions of ourselves we perform for approval.

The scripts we inherited but never questioned.

The metrics we adopted because they were easy to measure.

The lives we imagined because we were too afraid to imagine our own.

Maybe real growth isn’t about building.

Maybe it’s about shedding.

Unlearning.

Breaking.

And then sitting still long enough to listen to what’s left in the silence.

We love the noise of progress because it drowns out the truth:

There is no final version of you.

Only layers.

Only questions.

Only the courage to step into what’s next without needing to define it.

And maybe that’s not weakness.

Maybe that’s freedom.