That didn't happen. The plan cracked, and then crumbled like old porcelain. And instead of the confidence I'd promised myself, I felt only emptiness and shame. Shame in front of myself, as if I'd deceived myself and failed.
Sound familiar? Like you've missed the train carrying the "successful and accomplished." Their dreams came true! But mine didn't. Does that mean something's wrong with me?
I asked myself this question for a long time. And then I did three simple, yet very important things:
I allowed myself to grieve. Yes, I mean grieve. An unfulfilled dream is a loss. And it's normal to mourn the loss of the future you so vividly envisioned. I stopped telling myself to "pull yourself together!" and gave myself time to simply be sad.
I broke down my "unfulfilled dream" into detail. What did I really want from that picture? Not a specific position or city, but a feeling. It turned out I wanted a sense of meaning, creative fulfillment, and freedom. And then it dawned on me: is this door closed forever? No. It's just that the path to those feelings may be different, not as direct as I planned.