017 | your next ascent.

What to do when the conventional path fails to give you meaning.

Apr 26, 2026

It feels like chasing a horsefly around your kitchen with a swatter.

You can’t seem to get the thought out of your head… that looming question I rudely posited in your unchallenged psyche last week:

“If the person who built this life could see how you’re spending it, what would you need to change before they’d forgive you?”

You want to interject. Argue that it’s not a question worth answering, move on, and forget it was ever asked. You earned this life, and no one is going to convince you otherwise.

But there are two sides to this coin… you might have a life you worked incredibly hard for, but was it the one you truly wanted?

The thought returns during a Monday commute that feels more like a rude re-entry back into reality. Your same general routine, bedazzled with new tasks that always feel like they were meant for someone else. The days feel inseparable from any other as you drag toward a paycheck that smooths it all over- just long enough to do it again. You celebrate the weekend, rinse and repeat.

A moment of introspection pulls you out of the endless grind.

I’m living the life others could only dream of, you say to yourself.

But is it my dream?

You hear a record scratch. Something’s missing. You realize society’s desires are programmed so deeply into us, they feel like they’re our own - go to school, go to more school, get a 9 to 5, work 40 hours a week for 40 years, retire - when really, much of it a broader societal wish thrust upon us to shape us into the workers we were meant to be. It’s the extra weight we’re “supposed” to carry because “that’s just how life is”. But is it?

You’ve been climbing so long you never stopped to ask if you were scaling the right mountain.

In the past, you’ve wanted things before without knowing the next step to take. During our schooling, there was always someone or something you could refer to: a parent to ask, a course syllabus to follow, or a job posting to apply for. Each one a rung on an imaginary ladder built by others. You’d figure out what was expected and just do it.

But now? It’s just you and the question. And this time, your desire to change doesn’t mean you already know how to.

The path ahead is uncharted- nothing like the one you’re familiar with.

ACT ONE - THE FIRST CLIMB

The first climb wasn’t easy by any means.

It wasn’t always enjoyable either, but it was clearly defined. Someone had already carved the path: earn good grades, score high on your tests, join the right clubs, get into a good college.

College brought transcripts and internships, the right pieces to land the job you thought you wanted, with the salary to match.

Every milestone came with a number so you knew exactly where you stood compared to others. You knew who was “ahead” of you and what the next rung of the ladder looked like, because someone had already climbed it.

Guardrails were added to both sides of the path. You could fail an exam or bomb an interview without having an existential crisis. You couldn’t get lost, and the guardrails made sure of it. Drift too far and you’d be pulled back in by a parent, professor, rubric, or deadline. This system was built to keep you moving in the right direction, even on the days when it didn’t feel worth it.

“Success” was predefined. There was no questioning whether you were climbing the right mountain… it was the mountain. The peak was pointed out so early, it felt like the only way.

And for many of us, it was. We had the map, we just had to keep walking.

The lack of early options isn’t a complaint. The work was challenging. The successes felt rewarding, and they built the person you are today. You earned every one of them. There were no handouts.

Except for the direction. That was free.

You never bore the burden of inventing the path. You never had to defend it, or even imagine an alternative. Your high school days didn’t leave you wide awake at night in existential dread, wondering if it’ll all be worthwhile; the question was internally answered with an exuberant “yes!” …in a volume that slowly withered as years passed.

You didn’t realize what this map had given you until it was already gone.

ACT TWO - THE NEXT ASCENT

It always felt like there’d be a finish line.

The route you had traveled for so long, that seemed to have a destination, was no more than a paved sidewalk that devolved into a footpath, before opening into an infinite, untrodden desert.

There were mini finish lines, sure: the diploma, the job offer, the yearly reviews, a rewarding project completion at work. But there’s no letter in the mail stating: “Congrats! You’ve reached the end of that part of life where someone tells you what to do. Your turn!”

The message settles in over the course of years, from emotionless weekdays to unexplained restlessness to even a midlife (or quarter-life) crisis. There’s an odd sense that you’re missing something important but you don’t know what.

To some it feels like burnout, or a mental rut, or just general anxiety, but you can’t seem to shake it.

This is what I call the Now What? crisis. And I see it happening everywhere.

You structured a life around your goals. You spent years, maybe decades tackling them. Finally, you accomplished them. You expected to feel something grandiose, or at least something more than this, but the hard-earned win falls flat. The crisis sets in, a byproduct of the silence that follows the end of the assigned path.

This is the valley been the two mountains.

The first instinct is to do what’s always worked in your favor. Calibrate your proverbial boat, and just paddle harder. Pack the calendar, add side projects, build in that morning routine you heard about from a Huberman podcast. You go back to the grind because grinding is what got you here.

But the first mountain is behind us.

This is the next ascent. Effort alone won’t work this time.

The first climb was much like a rowboat on a river. The path was marked, the boundaries defined, the goal was set. You didn’t need to know where you’re going because the river already did. Effort was everything.

Your next ascent is like paddling a kayak in the middle of the ocean. There are no other kayaks to compare yourself to; each boat has its own lighthouse to reach. It’s up to you to find yours. You can paddle in any direction and the water doesn’t care. The skills that got you down the river still matter, but it’s not enough anymore. Effort without a destination is just pointless motion. An exhausting way of standing still.

There’s a vague feeling that you’re stuck, unsure of where to move next. What feels like a lack of discipline is actually analysis paralysis: you could go anywhere, so you go nowhere.

This is what separates the second climb from the first. It’s less about the level of difficulty (the first mountain is tough enough) and more about the flavor. The first climb asked “how hard will you work?” while the next ascent asks, “what life do you want to live?” The climb is now multi-dimensional. Steady motion and direction. Concentrated effort and purpose.

The next ascent still rewards effort, but through the lens of authorship. Your first climb chased external rewards: a comfortable salary, an important job title, maybe some LinkedIn clout. The next ascent follows something deeper: purpose, intention, and self-discovery.

It doesn’t mean you quit your day job tomorrow and go write poetry in a forest, or leave your family to take up a life of wakesurfing. The second ascent is simply an individual pursuit that requires you to become something more than you already are.

You can even ascend both mountains - the corporate life and the personally fulfilling path - in parallel. The second path doesn’t necessitate you make money from it either. Your options are infinite. As long as it feels true to you, and frees you to express parts of yourself previously repressed through corporate monotony, it’s the right fit. Plus, you can always pivot your interests with time as you better understand yourself.

Regardless of what you choose, beginning the next ascent is one of the most important things you will ever do for yourself.

You spent decades learning to answer questions. Now, it’s on you to write them.

ACT THREE - THE TRADES

Authorship feels noble, but it’s not without its costs. Your next ascent demands more than just effort and intention; it prompts you to make trades you’ve never had to make before. The same trades the first mountain handled for you before you knew to look out for them.

Three of them are the ones that stop most people before they ever start climbing. Each one cuts directly through the topics I write about most: developing into your “best self”, crafting an intentional life, and building your dreams.

The next ascent takes those pillars and performs open-heart surgery on them. Something has to go before something better can take its place.

Internal discovery replaces external applause.

Pursuing a purpose that’s truly yours means you stop wondering what is going to impress or please other people. This also means no one will applaud your achievements the way they used to, and you’ll often find yourself wishing for some kind of validation that never arrives.

During the first climb, you knew when you were winning because someone told you. It looked like a letter grade, a handshake at your graduation, or a raise at work. The applause was so regular you never noticed how much you relied on it.

Your next ascent won’t applaud you… it might not even watch. Your parents won’t understand, your boss won’t care, and the scoreboard doesn’t exist. Every win is personal and private- even if the public knew of your internal wins, they wouldn’t really get it.

Most people can’t make this trade, so they never do. They feel the silence and mistake it for failure, and then search for something that makes the audience clap for them once again. This looks like titles, status, shiny objects- things that only feel worth pursuing because everyone else will see them.

This is often described as “keeping up with the Joneses”, pursuing external rewards when comparison brings a sense of lack. When validation comes from inside, you can move forward in peace, knowing you’re discovering your unprogrammed self by pursuing something worth suffering for.

Self-imposed rules replace someone else’s.

Your freedom is heavier than it looks.

You’ve lived your entire life wishing someone would stop telling you what to do. Now no one is, and you don’t know what to do with yourself.

Turns out, freedom doesn’t feel the way you thought it would. It feels like the kayak in the ocean: every direction is available but no choice is convincing enough to commit to. You’ve been taught that people who do nothing are lazy, so you confuse your paralysis with sloth and feel guilty for your own inaction.

In reality, you’re experiencing withdrawal symptoms from a life where the next step was always templated for you.

The only way to elegantly carry freedom is to build your own rules- your own proverbial guardrails. You have to think them through, so following them leads somewhere you want to go. Here are a few examples of rules I’ve created for myself:

-I should be in bed by 10pm every night. Maybe 11 or 12 on weekends.

-I write every Tuesday morning, no excuses. This time is blocked off and it is sacred. No one can take it from me.

-I post every Sunday without fail.

-I don’t spend more than $100 per week on things I don’t absolutely need. Coffee, clothes, snacks, alcohol, Uber rides, etc., all fall in this bucket.

-I update my books (accounting) every other Friday.

-My partner and I clean the apartment top to bottom every Sunday.

Without rules, freedom is just drift. You float in the ocean, waiting for the next tide to take you somewhere you didn’t choose.

The first climb provided structure that slowly started to become a cage. Your next ascent doesn’t remove the cage, but it asks you to reshape it as a tool instead of a restraint.

Owned failure replaces shared blame.

When you pursue your own path, be it a project, side hustle, or just a creative hobby you’ve been sitting on, you are the author. Sometimes, you’ll accomplish something incredibly challenging and nobody will notice. Or worse, you’ll fail in public and leave yourself open to criticism.

On the first climb, failure was shared. If the path you followed didn’t work out, you could blame it on a shitty economy, a careless professor, or a boss that held you back. There was always something else to point at, and this made the failure more tolerable. Our shame can be deflected.

On your next ascent, the failures are yours and yours alone. You decided what was worth doing, so you set your aim and put in the work. When the outcome falls short, that failure is on you. The universe doesn’t owe you a thing, and when you screw up, you eat the cost.

Tough.

And that’s a reason most people refuse their next ascent. They might be capable, but they’d rather remain in a position where accountability is softened.

But ownership is a two-way street. You can’t claim success on a mountain you never climbed. Those who take complete accountability for their own life have decided that owned failure was a price worth paying to achieve owned success.

ACT FOUR - THE BLANK PAGE

The rest of our life, no matter how thoughtfully planned, is nothing more than a blank page. Our future is unwritten- for now.

The page doesn’t stay blank. You can refuse to pick up the pen, waiting for the perfect phrase to strike you. You can wait for a year, or you can wait for ten, but the page doesn’t wait for you to be ready.

Something is always writing.

Fail to pick up the pen and your employer will- filling it with deadlines, meetings, and Q2 goals that build their dreams instead of yours.

Fail to pick up the pen and social media starts to write it for you, using algorithms that fit you like a fingerprint- steeping you into the endless opinions of others until you can’t remember which ideas were even yours to begin with, endless consumption at the sacrifice of your own inner voice.

Fail to pick up the pen and notice your color-coded calendar fill with obligations you never agreed to, because our busyness protects us from facing our highest purpose.

A life on autopilot still looks like a complete life from the outside, but that’s exactly what makes it dangerous. You might just look up one day and notice that entire years passed you by, pages filled out with handwriting that isn’t yours.

The younger version of you didn’t fight that first climb to let the rest of their story get ghostwritten. They built the desk, adjusted the lighting, and laid out the pen and paper exactly where you’d find it. But the rest of the work is up to you.

Your next ascent begins on a blank page. It’s the only page you get.

If you don’t write the story,

someone else will.

-KPG