I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned âforeverâ into the only acceptable definition of success.
Like⌠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, itâs a âfailedâ business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you donât actually want to keep doing that, youâre a âfailedâ writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, itâs a âfailedâ marriage.
The only acceptable âwin conditionâ is âyou keep doing that thing foreverâ. 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 ârealâ friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a âphaseâ - or, alternatively, a âpityâ that you donât do that thing any more. A fandom is âdyingâ 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 itâs okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success⌠I donât think thatâs doing us any good at all.
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