What Emerged Instead
Quote from Howard Thurman on a letter board that reads, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and do it”
Editor’s note: This is written from my current vantage point
Welcome back, friends and followers, to the next chapter of the Life Taking Shape series. Today’s post is a special bonus reflection for the month of June. But before we dive in, let’s take a moment to reflect on what we’ve explored so far.
For anyone just joining us on this journey, Life Taking Shape series is a series about expansion, identity shifts, and the ways we evolve over time. Often, life begins changing long before we have the language to describe what’s happening. Through growth, uncertainty, curiosity, and experience, we gradually learn about ourselves and the lives we’re trying to build.
We began with Still Becoming, where we explored the uncertainty that can accompany personal growth and the realization that becoming isn’t always something we recognize in real time. More often, it’s something we understand in hindsight as our identity slowly shifts.
Then came Learning Out Loud, a reflection on curiosity, personal growth, and lessons that emerged along with when we’re willing to move forward without having all the answers. Together, we explored the idea that growth isn’t driven by certainty, but by a willingness to remain open, ask questions, and continue learning.
Which brings us to today’s bonus reflection, What Emerged Instead.
Sometimes growth doesn’t give us what we expected. Sometimes the lessons that stay with us most aren’t the ones we set out to learn. And sometimes, in the process of trying to improve ourselves, we rediscover something we didn’t realize we were missing.
So with that in mind, let’s begin.
One of the things I often found most interesting about growth is how often it challenges our expectations. For a long time, I assumed growth would look like becoming more serious. More disciplined. More emotionally controlled. More focused on responsibility and having everything together.
In my mind, growth was something that moved in a straight line toward maturity. But over time, I realized some of the healthiest growth I’ve experienced looked very different.
It looked like rediscovering joy. It looked like following my curiosity without needing a practical reason. It looked like making space for excitement, creativity, and activities that simply made me happy. It looked like giving myself permission to enjoy things I once loved without questioning whether they were productive enough, useful enough, or aligned with some expectation of what adulthood was supposed to look like.
In many ways, growth challenged my assumptions about maturity altogether. Rather than becoming more disconnected from the things that brought me joy, I found myself reconnecting with them. I began approaching life with a little more curiosity, a little more openness, and a willingness to experience things for the sake of experiencing them.
What surprised me most was that some of these moments felt familiar. They reminded me of the excitement, the wonder, and enthusiasm I carried more naturally when I was younger, before responsibilities, expectations, and the pressure to have everything figured out.
And that’s when I realized something important: Growth isn’t always about becoming someone new. Sometimes it’s about returning to parts of yourself that got left behind along the way.
That realization led me to another lesson I wasn’t expecting. Somewhere along the way, many of us began treating our interests as things that need to be justified. We feel pressure to explain why we’re spending our time a certain way, what we’re gaining from it, or how it contributes to some larger goal. If an activity isn’t helping us earn more, achieve more, or move us closer to a measurable outcome, it can start to feel difficult to defend, even to ourselves.
But I’ve come to question that way of thinking. Not everything in our lives needs to be measured, examined, optimized, or turned into something productive in order to matter. While many of us are conditioned to tie value to achievement, income, recognition, or visible results, some things are valuable simply because they make us feel alive again.
That’s where hobbies, interests, and passions hold a unique kind of importance. Not because they’re profitable. Not because they’re impressive. Not because they lead anywhere in particular. But because they allow us to experience enjoyment for its own sake.
In a world that often encourages us to focus on outcomes, there is something refreshing about doing something purely because we want to. Because we’re curious. Because we enjoy it. Because it brings us a sense of fulfillment that can’t always be measured.
I think we underestimate the role intrinsic motivation plays in our lives. The things we choose simply because they bring us joy often reveals something meaningful about who we are. And sometimes, enjoyment itself is reason enough. After all, not everything needs to become an achievement in order to have value. Sometimes the experience is the value.
And the more I reflected on this, the more I began noticing something else. The things we make room for often reveal what matters most to us. As we grow, evolve, and expand, what we prioritizes naturally begins to change. The same can be said for motivation. The things that once pushed us forward don’t always remain the things that inspire us later on.
That’s one of the reasons I find growth so fascinating. It doesn’t just change how we see ourselves, it changes how we define a meaningful life.
Right after college, my immediate focus was largely centered on achievement. I wanted to find a job in my career field, continue advancing, move into positions of leadership, and keep growing professionally. At the time, those goals made sense. They reflected the version of success I understood and the stage of life I was navigating.
But over the years, something shifted. While I still value growth and meaningful work, my motivations have become less centered on climbing a ladder and more centered on creating a life that feels sustainable. These days, I’m drawn toward harmony, peace, fulfillment, and balance. I want my work to contribute something meaningful and allow me to help others in some way. But I also want a life outside of work. A life that leaves room for hobbies, experiences, personal goals, and the people I care about most.
Along the way, I noticed that some of the things that once mattered a lot began losing their importance, while other things quietly became more meaningful. I found myself less concerned with how I was perceived and more interested in following my heart. Less focused on who I thought I should be and more focused on being who I already was. Less interested in meeting expectations and more interested in creating experiences that felt genuine, meaningful, and fulfilling.
The more I embraced those shifts, the more I began to notice something unexpected.
I’ve found that certain interests, passions, and traits have a way of staying with us, even when life pulls us in different directions. They may become quieter over time, pushed aside by work, responsibilities, or changing perspectives, but they rarely disappear completely. Instead, they remain beneath the surface, waiting for the right moment to reemerge.
For me, some of those things have been fitness, creativity, and the simply joy of pursuing something because I genuinely enjoy it.
There have been seasons of life when those interests took a backseat to other priorities. Yet when I returned to them, they didn’t feel unfamiliar. If anything, they felt like coming home.
That’s what surprised me most. I expected growth to introduce me to entirely new versions of myself. Instead, some of the most meaningful growth came from reconnecting with parts of myself that had been there all along.
In many ways, returning to old passions isn’t about moving backward. It’s about remembering. It’s about recognizing the pieces of ourselves that helped shape who we are and making space for them once again.
I’ve come to believe that not every new chapter begins with something new. Sometimes it begins when we revisit something familiar and discover that it still holds meaning. Sometimes it begins when we reconnect with the interests, passions, and parts of ourselves that never truly left, they were simply waiting for us to find our way back.
Looking back, the lesson wasn’t what I expected it to be. I thought growth would teach me how to become someone new. Instead, it taught me how to reconnect with parts of myself that had been there all along.
It reminded me that not everything needs to be measured by achievement in order to matter. That joy has value even when it doesn’t produce a result. That our priorities will naturally change as we grow. And that some of the things we leave behind aren’t meant to stay there forever.
Sometimes growth looks like moving forward. Sometimes it looks like changing direction. And sometimes it looks like returning to something familiar with a deeper appreciation for what it has always meant to you.
That’s what emerged instead.
Not a new identity. Not a dramatic transformation. But a renewed connection to the things that make me feel most alive.
As you reflect on your own journey, I invite you to consider this: What is something you’ve been meaning to return to?
Perhaps it’s a hobby, an interest, a dream, a passion, or a part of yourself that slowly got pushed aside as life became busier. What might happen if you made space for it again?
You may discover that growth isn’t always about becoming more, sometimes it’s about remembering what mattered all along.
As you ponder, or even begin to rediscover parts of yourself, may you have a beautiful week ahead. See you back on Monday!
As a signature of my blog, I’d like to end this post with a suggestion to “Pass on kindness.” There’s no time like the present to Inspire Those Who Inspire You. Acts of kindness, no matter how big or small, can have a direct, positive impact on someone else. Go out there today and change someone’s life for the better!
***These are my personal opinions and may not be those of my employer.***
