EASE: Escaping Achievement; Seeking Experiences
I'm reaching out because I'm looking for my people—specifically, those of you who were identified early as brilliant or "high potential," became driven by what others said that you should accomplish, and now feel spent, jaded, disillusioned, or ready to tackle that addiction to forever climbing the ladder. I’m looking for the people who know what it’s like to spend decades running a race you never actually signed up for.
For those who knew me back in the day, you remember me as the kid who, at age 13, wrote a book “disproving algebra.” From that moment on, I was surrounded by a chorus of voices telling me what I could be, what I should do, and how much "potential" I had to change the world.
Like many of us, I internalized that chorus. For decades, my entire operating system was driven by trying to be the person other people expected me to be. I made choices based on what looked best on a CV or what would validate my "potential," rather than what I actually wanted. I spent decades training my nervous system to treat achievement as oxygen.
To put it bluntly: I feel like I “won” the game. I got a bunch of degrees, a bunch of patents and publications, built and sold a hospitality company, and retired early. By most metrics we were trained to chase, I reached the finish line.
But here is the catch: Now that I’m here, I’m finding it extraordinarily difficult to actually stop running.
It's been seven years since I retired, and I'm finally in the process of defeating what I call "productivity shame"—that deeply embedded programming that says our worth is measured by our output, our achievements, our visible success. I'm actively in recovery from achievement addiction, learning to build a life around authentic experiences rather than external validation. It’s a strange irony: I literally wrote a novel in 2007 called The Mobius Strip that is explicitly about rejecting status and not basing self-worth on achievement—yet I find myself still struggling to live by the very philosophy I wrote down.
Even stranger, despite having "made it," I am still haunted by the feeling that I didn’t live up to the astronomical expectations people placed on us back then. I know rationally that I have no obligation to meet the projections of past professors or the "13-year-old prodigy" narrative, and I know that trying to do so is detrimental to my happiness.
I am actively working on defeating this "productivity shame" and recovering from what I’ve come to see as a genuine addiction to achievement. I am finally in the process of recovery. I am actively dismantling the shame and learning how to just be instead of do.
But recovery is lonely work, and I don't want to do it in a vacuum.
I’m looking to connect (or reconnect) with people who are walking this same path. I want to find the others—the former "gifted kids," the burnt-out high achievers, the people who were extraordinarily successful on paper but are now realizing they were hopelessly addicted to the climb.
I’m jokingly calling this support group EASE: Escaping Achievement; Seeking Experiences.
I'm not looking for advice or people to tell me "just relax" or "be grateful for what you have." I have plenty of strategies and am moving in the right direction. I am looking for solidarity. I want to build a small circle of mutual support, empathy, and validation for those of us who are trying to deprogram ourselves from the cult of achievement.
If you read this and feel a pang of recognition—if you
are tired of the endless rat race and want to talk about what life looks like
on the other side of "ambition"—please reach out. Let’s compare notes
on how to stop running.