When you spend your life chasing approval, you don’t always realize what you’re actually chasing. It’s subtle—an unconscious adaptation, a constant morphing into what’s acceptable, likable, or worthy in the eyes of others. But adapting is exhausting. And one day, whether through burnout, heartbreak, or sheer exhaustion, you hit a wall. That’s when the truth lands: the love you received wasn’t for you. It was for the mask you wore.
That realization stings. Not because people didn’t love you, but because you never gave them a chance to love the real you. And now, you don’t know how they’d react to your unfiltered self. Some will walk away, some will stay. Either way, it’s clarifying.
The mask will crack—it always does. Because sustaining something inauthentic is unnatural. And the moment it does, you’ll realize that the only person you ever needed to impress was yourself. Not everyone will like you. But the ones who do? They’ll love you, not the performance.
And that’s the only love worth keeping.
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