"Me, last." The silent script that buries high-achievers

For years, I optimized for everyone else.

Parents. Company. Team. Society's scorecard.

Somewhere in all that optimizing, "me" got buried deep under the soil — and I didn't even notice it was gone.

The script

If you grew up being told to work hard, make your family proud, and not waste the opportunities others sacrificed for — you know this script by heart.

Get the grades. Get the stable, prestigious job. Keep the family proud. Be the reliable one on the team. Put your head down and perform.

It's not a bad script. It builds careers. It builds security. It's why a lot of us ended up with the good salary and the impressive logo on the CV.

But it has one quiet flaw baked in: you are always last on the list. Parents first. Company first. Team first. Customer first. Me... eventually. Someday. After.

And "someday" has a way of never arriving.

Nobody warns you what it costs

The bill doesn't come all at once. It's not a crisis. It's a slow erosion.

You wake up one day genuinely unable to answer simple questions. What do I actually want? What do I enjoy, outside of being good at my job? When did I last do something purely because it made me feel alive — not because it looked good, paid well, or made someone else proud?

I hit that wall. On paper I had everything the script promised. Inside, the person all of it was supposedly for had been buried so long I'd half-forgotten he was down there.

The hardest part wasn't being unhappy. It was realizing I'd optimized my whole life for a "me" I'd stopped consulting.

Digging it back up

Here's the strange thing I've learned since leaving: the self doesn't die down there. It waits.

And when you finally start putting yourself back on the list — not first, just on it — it comes back faster than you'd think.

For me it showed up in small, almost embarrassing ways at first. Picking up a paintbrush again. Writing in public even though it terrified me. Building things because they were interesting, not because they were on a roadmap. Saying "this doesn't align with me" and actually meaning it.

None of it looked impressive. All of it made me feel more alive than a promotion ever had.

You don't have to quit to start

This isn't a "quit your job" essay. Putting yourself back on the list doesn't require a dramatic exit.

It starts with a smaller, harder question, asked honestly:

In the optimizing I do every day — for my boss, my family, my team — where am I on the list?

If the honest answer is "last, always," you don't need a new life. You need to stop burying the one person the whole thing was meant to be for.

Dig him up. He's still down there. He's been waiting.

When did you last do something purely because it made you feel alive? Reply and tell me — I read every one.

Written from life after 9 years at Google.