The Choice We All Face

I used to think success had a shape. 

For years I imprisoned myself with the thought that if I worked hard enough, pushed through enough, sacrificed enough, success would finally appear before me—tangible, undeniable, something I could hold in my hands.

And many times, I believed I had found it.

I built things. I achieved things. I reached toward goals that once seemed un imaginable. But every time I arrived, the feeling was fleeting. The hunger remained. And so, I set new goals, thinking that if I just reached a little further again, tried a little harder than the last time, then maybe—just maybe—success would settle into something real.

But no matter how much I gained, the feeling of lack remained.

It’s easy to mistake desire for direction. To assume that because we are pulled toward something, it must be the thing we are meant to have. But what if the longing itself is the lesson? What if desire isn't a sign of what we need to acquire—but what we need to transform?

We are told from childhood that success is something to be earned. Something we must chase, claim, prove. It is woven into every system we engage with—education, career, relationships. The world tells us that our worth is measured by how well we navigate it, how much we achieve within it.

And yet, those who reach the highest peaks often say the same thing: It wasn’t what I thought it would be.

Because success, as we imagine it, is never truly about the thing itself.

It’s about what we think the thing will give us.

We don’t chase the title, the wealth, the recognition—we chase the feeling we believe will come with it.

Fulfilment.

Security.

Belonging.

But what happens when we finally arrive, only to find that nothing inside of us has changed?

What happens when we realise that success is not the antidote to the emptiness, but another way we have learned to run from it?

For a long time, I really believed success would bring me peace. That once I achieved enough, I would finally be able to stop. That the race would end, and I could just be.

But no.

Real success isn’t found in an arrival. It isn’t something that exists at the top of a mountain, waiting to be claimed.

Real success is presence.

The ability to be where you are fully.

The ability to engage with life, not as a series of obstacles to overcome, but as something to be lived.

And yet, how many of us have ever truly been here?

Our desires keep us moving, keep us reaching, keep us searching for what we don’t have. We are always measuring, calculating, weighing our place against what we think we should be. And so we live in a constant state of almost.

Almost enough.

Almost happy.

Almost whole.

It is only when everything is stripped away—when the titles, the achievements, the external validation are removed—that we are left with the truth:

Who are we without all of it?

When life brings us to nothing, we are forced to choose ourselves.

It’s not a glamorous choice. It’s not the kind of self-love that fits neatly into inspirational quotes, mindfulness or wellness routines.

It’s the choice to sit in the discomfort of our own company.

To stop running.

To see ourselves—not as a project to fix, not as a collection of accomplishments, but as something worthy, simply because we are.

But this choice comes with a cost.

Choosing yourself, at first, means choosing loneliness.

Because the world does not pause when we step back. It moves forward, as it always has. And for a time, we may feel like we are drifting—unseen, unrecognised, unsure of where we now belong.

And this is where so many of us get lost.

Because loneliness is not easy to sit with. And in its silence, it becomes tempting to fill it with something else.

Validation. Distraction. The illusion of self-love that asks nothing of us but indulgence.

But self-love is not about indulgence.

It is not about drowning in ourselves, shielding ourselves from the world in the name of healing.

Real self-love—the kind that leads to something greater—is about integration.

It is about learning to hold ourselves so that we can step back into the world as something more whole.

Because if we stay in the isolation of self, we risk something greater than loneliness.

We risk forgetting that life is not just about how we experience it—It’s about how we share it.

There is a moment in this process that changes everything.

The moment we realise that self-love is not the destination.

It is the bridge.

A bridge made of a single, fragile word.

"To."

Self to love.

The smallest shift in language, the greatest shift in understanding.

Because love, by nature, does not remain static. It moves. It extends. It reaches beyond itself.

And if our love does not move us toward others, then what we are practicing is not self-love—It is self-imprisonment.

And that is a choice we all must face.

To remain in the comfort of self, turning inward until the world becomes a distant hum.

Or to step onto the narrow bridge—the path that connects what we need for ourselves with what we are meant to give to others.

True success isn’t measured in what we collect.

It’s measured in what we contribute.

And self-love, when it is real, will never lead us further into isolation.

It will lead us toward each other.

Even when the bridge is thin.

Even when the path is uncertain.

The only way forward is together.

So where does this leave us?

I think Shakespeare said it best

“To be, or not to be—that is the question.”

It’s not a riddle of existence.

It’s the only real choice we’re ever given.

And the one that changes everything.

—Bradley J. Cleary

One Of You

Bradley J. Cleary