The Question That Changed Everything

A minimalist soft beige interior with natural light filtering through a window.

Today, I don’t perform as much. I still catch myself sometimes, slipping into old habits of pleasing or performing, but I notice faster.

That’s what awareness does. It gives you a pause. It doesn’t erase old patterns, but it lets you see them before they take over.

And that pause — that space between impulse and honesty — is where everything begins to change.

It’s where I started asking the question that has become my compass:
Is this me, or is this who I think I should be?

It sounds simple, but it isn’t. That question asks for honesty you can’t fake. It forces you to look at where your life still runs on auto-pilot, where your decisions still orbit around approval, and where you’ve been shaping yourself to match other people’s comfort instead of your own truth.

The first time I asked it, I didn’t like the answer.

I realized how many parts of my life were built on other people’s expectations — jobs I stayed in because they looked stable, relationships I maintained because they made sense on paper, habits that made me feel responsible but also quietly resentful.

The question didn’t tell me what to do. It simply made me aware that I had a choice.