This response made me smile in the best way possible. Ironically, it’s been occupying a lot of my brain-space lately.

Some of us are fortunate enough to get some kind of kick in the ass that forces us to question things. Those small questions lead to bigger and bigger questions, until we suddenly start to strip away all of the cultured layers of who we are. Once that process starts, there’s no way to glue those layers back on.

What I find exceptionally interesting, however, is how some of us seem to find this path or go on this journey almost intuitively, and some never do. Even exceptionally intelligent people see the world as something that just is — and something we need to accept to be ‘successful’ — rather than understanding why it is the way it is and how it prompts us to be a certain way.

I grew up in an extremely sheltered, well-off, very right-leaning community. I was taught to follow social rules instead of learning how to listen to myself. And was incredibly unhappy for a really long time because of it. I wanted people to like me and was obsessed with doing well at whatever I did, so I did my hair a certain way, wore the right clothes, said the right things … and was completely miserable inside. Had someone taught me to listen to myself and to disregard rules made by power-hungry middle-aged white men as a kid, I probably would have spent my 20s in a much happier place.

For me, the ‘kick in the ass’ was when a new manager was placed on top of me for a special project I was placed on at work (in Seattle, as you asked). He was exceptionally brilliant, questioned everything, and understood human behavior in a way that opened my eyes. This led me to ask myself some simple questions about my own thinking and behavior. And as mentioned above, this led to an unearthing of my cultural conditioning and why I was the way I was.

My divorce kickstarted this journey on an even deeper level. It’s prompted me to change how I think about my career, money, how I live, who and how I love, and who I let in my life. I have a feeling it’ll be a life-long journey, but I’m glad I’m on it. It sounds like you’re on it, too. Higher levels of consciousness = personal freedom.