I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned βforeverβ into the only acceptable definition of success.
Likeβ¦ if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, itβs a βfailedβ business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you donβt actually want to keep doing that, youβre a βfailedβ writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, itβs a βfailedβ marriage.
The only acceptable βwin conditionβ is βyou keep doing that thing foreverβ. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a βrealβ friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a βphaseβ - or, alternatively, a βpityβ that you donβt do that thing any more. A fandom is βdyingβ because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.
I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And itβs okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of successβ¦ I donβt think thatβs doing us any good at all.
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