by Olivia
He had a stable job, a nice apartment, and everyone said he was “living the life,” but each day he felt like he was living someone else’s version of success. He smiled through meetings and dinner parties, and quietly wondered what it would feel like to choose a life that actually felt like his own. He didn’t feel like his true self, only like someone who was taught that this was what success was and this is the type of status people work for. It was like he was in a velvet cage and all anyone said was,”It’s such a nice life!” or what a “Successful young man!” But no one acknowledged he was trapped and struggling to get out of the confined bars of expectation. He often thought that maybe the subtle loss of freedom was something he never realized came with this way of living. The way of living that was acceptable–at least that’s what he was told.
Don’t worry about him though. I can promise you he’ll find a path that leads him out of this imprisonment. One that allows him to finally breathe and let go of this falsehood. It will take time, but he will discover what truly makes his heart beat faster, what lights a spark in the quiet corners of his soul that no title ever could. He’ll begin to experiment with parts of his life he had long ignored: a dusty sketchbook pulled from a forgotten shelf, a song he’s never sung out loud, or a trip to a place where no one knows his name or his résumé. At first, doubt will cling to him like a shadow, and the familiar voices of "success" will try to pull him back into that velvet cage, but he’ll hold onto the quiet, stubborn truth growing inside: freedom isn’t about approval or appearances. And when he finally walks forward as a happy man and the architect of his own days he’ll realize the life he lived before helped him grow into the one he was always meant to have.