How did we end up here?

I keep wondering how we ended up here.

How did so many people end up feeling lost, exhausted, bored, stressed, disconnected, or all of the above, while still looking like they're doing absolutely fine from the outside?

The wild part is how good most of us are at hiding it. We keep functioning. We work, earn money, raise our kids, make plans, book holidays and answer emails, all while quietly feeling that something isn't quite right. And sometimes there is a warning shot: burnout, illness, divorce, or one of those funky midlife decisions that makes everyone around you wonder what on earth happened.

But sometimes there isn't even a warning shot. You simply become less and less yourself without really noticing it. And when everyone around you seems to be doing exactly the same thing, it becomes surprisingly difficult to see that anything is wrong in the first place.

That's the part I find most interesting. Because I don't think we're only talking about tired people. I think a lot of people have lost touch with their own fire without even realising they had it one day. Their curiosity, their creativity, their weird ideas, their natural genius, the things that make them lose track of time, or the things they would make, explore or pursue if nobody had ever told them they needed to be useful, sensible or profitable.

And I have a theory about why.

Many of us learned very early to become very good at adapting. We learned how to behave, perform, achieve, fit in, be responsible and finish what we started. We learned to listen to instructions, meet expectations and get good at the things that were rewarded. Those are useful skills, and I'm not interested in pretending otherwise.

But we don't necessarily learn how to recognise ourselves in the process. How to notice what lights us up. How to recognise our own genius. How to follow curiosity before we know where it's going. How to listen when something inside us says, "What if?" Instead, we can become incredibly good at consuming. Information, entertainment, other people's ideas, other people's lives. And then wonder why our own feels a little flat.

I'm not saying you need to quit your job, burn your life to the ground and move to Bali. You can start much smaller.

You can start a little business on the side. Take up the hobby you've been thinking about for years. Make something. Build something. Learn something completely unrelated to your career. Spend some of those Netflix hours creating instead of consuming. Follow the weird little idea that keeps coming back, even if you have absolutely no idea where it will lead. You can give yourself permission to be a beginner again. To totally suck at something but having fun learning. Maybe you discover a part of yourself you had completely forgotten was there.

That's what I'm interested in.

Not waiting until someone is forty, burned out, divorced, sick or completely lost before they start asking themselves who they actually are. Not because there is something wrong with us, but because I genuinely believe there is so much more available to us than simply becoming really good at functioning.

And perhaps that's what I'd love to see change for the kids coming up behind us. Less damage control later, and more room much earlier to discover what makes them come alive.

If something in this resonated, pay attention to that. Just follow the thread. And just do it... today is a good day to start.

Love, Annemarijn

PS. If something in here stirred, there are a few ways to go deeper, all free.

UNLEASHED, a 7-day email challenge, one sharp question a day.

Treasure Hunting, where it all began.

Newsletter, more of this in your inbox, regularly.

All you need is honesty, a sense of adventure, and a little fire starting to glow in your belly.