Rule Junkie

Okay so here’s something I didn’t want to admit out loud, but here we are!

I spent thirty-something years thinking I was a strong, independent woman who trusted her gut — and it turns out what I was actually doing was renting other people’s certainty and calling it conviction. Not the same thing. Not even close.

Every five years there was a new correct version of life and I signed up every single time like a lab rat with a credit card and a deeply embarrassing need to be told I was doing it right. Minimalism. Hustle culture. Quiet quitting. Wake up at five. No wait, protect your sleep like it’s sacred. I did all of it. I bought the notebook. I restructured my mornings. I rewrote my personality based on a podcast I heard in traffic.

And when it didn’t work? I didn’t think maybe the system is stupid. I thought clearly I need to suffer better. More efficiently. With intention. As if the problem was my commitment level and not the fact that I was following directions written by someone who didn’t know me and didn’t care.

I stayed in things way too long. Jobs. Relationships. Versions of myself that had already expired but felt safer than the blank space on the other side of leaving. I told myself good adults don’t quit. Good adults stick it out. Good adults don’t make it weird.

I made it so un-weird. I was the un-weirdest. I endured things that didn’t require endurance and called it strength and honestly that might be the most embarrassing sentence I’ve ever typed.

Here’s the thing nobody warned me about. If you’re someone who reflects and takes responsibility and genuinely wants to get it right — congratulations, you are a systems dream come true. Because you will keep adjusting long past the point of no return. You will write the “maybe it’s me” speech so many times you lose count. You will become a better version of someone who is still in the wrong place and feel noble about it.

The system doesn’t need to trap you. It just needs you to keep assuming it’s you.

I gave that lie my twenties. My thirties. A solid chunk of my forties. I followed instructions that were never written down, for a game that was never set up for me to win, and I did it with discipline and receipts and a color-coded calendar.

So I guess my question is — what exactly were you following that you’re only just now starting to question?