I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned โforeverโ into the only acceptable definition of success.
Likeโฆ 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, itโs a โfailedโ business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you donโt actually want to keep doing that, youโre a โfailedโ writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, itโs a โfailedโ marriage.
The only acceptable โwin conditionโ is โyou keep doing that thing foreverโ. 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 โrealโ friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a โphaseโ - or, alternatively, a โpityโ that you donโt do that thing any more. A fandom is โdyingโ 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 itโs okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of successโฆ I donโt think thatโs doing us any good at all.
โOne day you will thank yourself for never giving up.โ
โ Unknown
itโs a beautiful feeling