what i wish someone had told me earlier.

i wish someone had told me earlier that the version of yourself you perform for approval is always slightly wrong. not because you're lying, but because performance has an audience and an audience changes what you say.

the version of you that exists when you're not managing anyone's impression — the one who shows up in your private thoughts, in the things you find funny when no one is looking, in the opinions you hold quietly because you haven't figured out how to defend them yet — that one is more accurate. that one is the one worth building a life around.

i spent years curating a version of myself i thought was more presentable. more palatable. more likely to be liked. and it worked, in the most hollow way possible. people liked the performance.

the real work was learning to care more about being known than being liked. that shift changes everything. i mean everything.