A Ghost of Herself

Every morning, I spend a few moments with a small, weathered box that holds more value to me than any bank account ever could. It’s what my grandmother called her “Happiness File.” After my grandma passed away, this object became my compass because inside are hundreds of index cards, each one boasting a thought, quote, or simple observation she found worth saving. Some are whimsical, but others are so profound they stop me in my tracks.

Recently, I pulled one out that held three words: “You are enough.”

On the surface, it sounds obvious and even trite. But the more I sat with it, the more I realized it’s a warning against the expectations we place on ourselves and others. In fact we spend so much of our lives projecting perceptions onto the people around us. We decide how our spouses should react to stress. We map out the degrees and promotions our children should pursue to be "secure." We tell ourselves that if they “just tried a little harder” or “pivoted a little faster,” they’d reach that subjective peak we call "success."

But one of the most dangerous people we do this to might not be friends or family because it can be extremely damaging when we do this to…ourselves. We live our lives for a "perfected" version of us that doesn't actually exist, and in doing so, we ignore the beautiful, breathing, struggling human being we actually are.

During a recent phone call with one of my oldest friends, I felt reminded of this painful truth. She is, by every traditional standard, quite accomplished. This is probably due to the fact that my friend is a perfectionist of the highest order—the kind of person whose work ethic is both inspiring and exhausting to witness. For years, I’ve watched her treat life like a mountain, convinced that if she could just climb one more peak, she’d  finally be worthy of the love and kindness she so freely gives to everyone else.

But as life eventually does to all of us, it recently hit her hard. A series of setbacks—professional disappointments and personal misfortunes—collided all at once. Because she had tied her entire identity to achievements, the loss of those goals felt like a loss of her very self.

On the phone, her voice wafted out thin and brittle. She cried, telling me she felt like a failure, a ghost of the person she was "supposed" to be. She felt fully convinced she’d never return to the starting line, let alone win the race.

I wanted to reach through the phone line to pull her back down to reality. I spoke from the perspective of my own experience with cancer—a journey that strips away the vanity of "professional standing" very quickly. When you’re facing mortality, you don’t wish you’d spent more hours in the office or received one more accolade. You realize that the only thing that truly echoes is how much you loved and how you made the people around you feel. I told her, as clearly as I could, that she is exactly who she needs to be right now. That she is perfect in her "trying," regardless of the outcome.

But she couldn't hear me. Her mind had already drifted someplace else.

Then, my friend began talking about the concept of parallel universes. She told me, with a haunting kind of hope, that she strongly believes in the multiverse—that somewhere out there, in an alternate reality, there is a version of her that didn’t fail—a version that is raking in the money, becoming famous, and receiving the "noted" status she craves. She started fantasizing about this other woman, this "Successful Her," as if that person were the real one and the woman on the phone—with me—merely represented a broken mistake.

When I hung up, I felt profoundly somber to realize that my friend—one of the sweetest, most generous souls I’ve ever met—had become so blinded by her own high expectations she couldn't see the miracle of her own existence in this reality. She looked into the cosmos for a version of herself to love, while the person standing right here is starving for self-compassion.

My friend’s fatal flaw isn't a lack of talent or drive. Her flaw is that she is kind to the entire world, yet treats herself like a tenant she’s trying to evict.

I know we’re all guilty of this to some degree. We live in a culture that treats "striving" as a moral virtue and "pivoting" as a failure. We’re taught that if we aren't moving upward, we’re falling behind. But my grandmother’s index card offers a different path, explaining the each one of us IS enough. Right now! No expectations. No potential. No assumptions. YOU. Are. Enough. 

Success is not a destination; it is a lens. If we view our lives through the lens of external achievement, we will always be poor, because there is always someone with a more prestigious title, a bigger house, or more… Stuff. But if we view our lives through the lens of kindness—if we measure our days by the grace we extend to others and the love we allow ourselves—we find that we have already arrived.

Life is hard. It is full of misfortunes we never asked for and setbacks we didn't earn. But we are all just doing the best we can with the tools we have at the time. Sometimes, "doing your best" doesn't look like a promotion; sometimes, it just looks like getting out of bed and choosing to be gentle with yourself and those around you.

If you find yourself today looking at the "parallel universe" of what might have been, I hope you can stop and smell the flowers instead. You don’t need to be the version of you that has it all together. You don’t need the accolades to be worthy of the space you hold in this world.

You are exactly who you need to be. You are here, you are trying, and in this universe, you are more than enough.