There’s a thing you’re good at. Maybe it’s a creative skill you’ve spent years developing and honing. Maybe it’s an unpleasant but valuable task at your day job. Maybe it’s something you used to enjoy but no longer do.
You’re really good at this thing. Good enough that it’s earned you praise, respect, perhaps even money.
This thing has almost magical powers of attraction. Whenever people find out you can do it, they immediately ask if you can do it for them. The more you do the thing, the more validation you receive.
Fuck, that validation feels good. You want more. So you keep saying yes.
There’s just one problem: you hate doing this thing.
You’re tired of it. Your body physically rebels at the thought of continuing to do it. But now you have a reputation as the person who’s good at the thing, so people keep coming to you — friends, clients, colleagues, family. Sometimes it feels like you’ll never fully escape.
Here’s a personal example. I am a classically trained pianist. Every week from ages 7 to 17, I attended rigorous lessons. I played Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, and dozens of other composers most people have never heard of.
I liked it well enough. No one forced me to study piano. But practicing felt more like a chore than a joy. Lessons were an obligation. The recitals were the worst part.
(I am still unpacking the impact of those recitals with my therapist.)
But oh, that validation kept me coming back anyway. Everyone in my family was so proud. My grandfather was a professional musician — we would all brag about how he played in Frank Sinatra’s band — so me playing piano was a big deal. It felt important. I felt important.
So I kept playing. I convinced myself it was worth it. I devoted 10 years of my childhood to a craft I never loved because I didn’t realize I could quit. I knew, in theory, that a word called “quit” existed and had a definition I understood, but I never truly felt that quitting was an option.
Until one day, I did. At 17 years old, burned out, exhausted, and on the verge of achieving the highest level for my course of study, I quit.
The liberation I felt in that moment was better than all the validation I’d ever received up until that point.
Something else happened, too. Suddenly, I had more time and mental energy for the things I loved. The things I’d neglected in favor of piano. The things that brought me deep, enduring joy.
You deserve that, too.
You don’t have to keep doing the thing you hate doing.
You can say no.
You can let go of the validation.
You can even make people angry when you refuse to do the thing they’ve come to take for granted (they’ll be fine, I promise).
You have that power.
There’s a thing you’re really good at, that you also hate doing.
You don’t have to do that thing anymore.
Varsity track. I was good at distance running, so I always ran the mile and two mile races. It was great while I was in JV. Then I became good enough for varsity, and it was awful. Suddenly I wasn't running for myself anymore. I was running to not let others down. I tried to say no. I was pressured into saying yes. I kept going through my senior year of high school, but that last year was a very dark time. I kept running for a while after high school, but I stopped improving, because I stopped believing I could. My mind never left the time that I disappointed everyone. My final race was my worst time of the year.
I should've said no to the competition and kept my running for myself. I was afraid of disappointing people. In the end, I did that anyway, along with disappointing myself.
It's good to recognize your talent. It's more important to recognize your passions.
This is such a great post! I've never thought about it from this angle before. Back in the day, I worked in IT and I didn't love it, but I was good at it and it was a highly marketable skill. Everybody I knew asked me to fix their computers for them, or explain to them how to do this or that in some program I'd never heard of. I didn't make the same brave decision you did; losing my skill set because of not keeping up with the newest technology took care of that for me, in a very passive way. (I quit working when I became disabled, so that, too, was not an active choice). I admire your courage and conviction to make such a bold and life-affirming decision!