Some people don’t understand how broken they are until it’s too late to do anything about it.
I’m one of the lucky ones. I crashed early enough in life that I was forced to face who I really was. Up until my early 30s, I thought I was the Golden Child who would change the world. I had been successful and praised and envied.
And then I crashed. I failed. And the fall was hard.
I really was everything I had thought I was. I was brilliant, talented, driven, creative, empathetic, insightful. Those were the things I put on display. They were the things I wanted everyone to see. I impressed people. I made them love me or envy me or hate me. But I was in denial about the broken parts which I barely acknowledged to myself — the parts which I hid from the world.
At the core of my brokenness, there is a desperate need. A hunger. I can acknowledge it now, but for years, I was so ashamed of my deep hunger for love and attention and approval that I covered it up. I’m sure it showed at times, but I did everything in my power to hide it.
That desperate hunger is still there today. Most of that brokenness will never heal.
People who invoke ‘fairness’ generally just mean, ‘Do things my way — or else’
Trivial distractions keep us from focusing on love and connection
How could we take responsibility but avoid self-destructive shame?
‘This path leads to somewhere I think I can finally say, I’m home’
When love finally dies, it’s like a fever breaks and the pain is gone
Society needs storytellers to help make sense of a changing world
Israeli-Palestinian conflict can’t be reduced to heroes and villains
This is my private confessional; the truths I write often scare me
If politics sends you into a rage, is it really a good use of your time?