I spent years chasing an ivy league letter

What I thought it would prove—and the part of me I was trying to protect

I knew I was putting a lot of pressure on the Yale decision—even at the time. I just didn’t fully understand why it carried so much weight.

All through high school, I built a life that would look impressive on paper. I took AP classes, played varsity sports, held leadership roles, and did well in music. From the outside, it looked like ambition. But honestly, I thought that’s just what I was supposed to do. That pushing myself was the default—and that anything less meant I wasn’t meeting the standard.

But just being a high achiever wasn’t the whole story.

Even as a kid, I didn’t feel as confident or socially at ease as some of the other kids. I watched how easily people made friends, how relaxed they seemed in groups, how naturally they fit in. And I didn’t always feel that way.

So early on, another part of me stepped in. The part that found safety in achievement. The one that said: Maybe you won’t be the most charismatic. But you can still be the most disciplined. You can outwork them. You can be the one who does everything right. And if you can become that person—if you can prove your value on paper—maybe that will be enough. Maybe then you’ll feel like you belong.

Yale became the imagined proof that the logic was working.
A clear outcome. An undeniable signal. The Holy Grail that represented proof that I'd finally done enough.

When I got waitlisted, I didn’t fall apart. I told other people I was fine. I even told myself I was fine. I picked another school and kept moving.

But something subtle had started to come undone, even if I didn’t see it clearly at the time. I had been living by a quiet equation: the more effort I gave, the more I was worth—and if I gave enough, the outcome would follow. So when the outcome didn’t come, it did more than disappoint me. It disrupted the story I had built my identity around. I felt disoriented. Like I had done everything right, and still come up short—and I didn’t know what that said about me.

Still, I kept following the same framework. I brought it with me to college, hoping it might start to feel true again.

College

In college, I didn’t stop striving—I just changed what I was aiming at.

I spent the first couple years researching prestigious internships, applying for competitive fellowships, and trying to line up experiences that would make my résumé impressive again. But I wasn’t really paying attention to whether those opportunities aligned with anything I cared about. I just wanted to feel like I was back on track to becoming someone worth noticing.

As more of those doors stayed shut—or didn’t lead where I hoped—I started to feel unmoored. I wasn’t failing. But I wasn’t standing out either. I didn’t feel like “the high achiever” anymore. And that left a gap:

If I’m not exceptional on paper anymore, what else can I hang my identity on?

Post-College

That’s when I turned toward fitness.

I found CrossFit and poured myself into it. I trained intensely, tracked every meal, tightened my routines. It felt good—clear, focused, structured. It was a space where I could still feel like effort mattered. That discipline and consistency would pay off.

Looking back, I can see it was the same mental model I had been applying to everything else:
If I just do everything right—follow all the protocols, outwork the people around me—I’ll become someone who’s hard to ignore.

But the pattern repeated. The harder I pushed, the more things started to unravel.
I wasn’t fueling enough to keep up with my training. I lost weight. My testosterone flatlined. My recovery tanked. I developed RED-S. My nervous system was fried. I had overtrained for so long that my body finally shut down.

And again, I was left confused. Because I had done everything I thought I was supposed to.
I had followed the formula—intensity, commitment, sacrifice—and the outcome still didn’t match the effort.

It was the same message, in a different form:
This system you’ve been using to make yourself feel safe? It’s not working anymore.

Where I Am Now

That breakdown forced me to slow down—not just physically, but mentally.

Over the last year and a half, I’ve done more internal work than ever before. I’ve started to see the pattern—not just intellectually, but emotionally. I’ve begun to grieve it. Not all at once, and not in some big dramatic moment, but slowly. I’m allowing myself to feel what it meant to build my life around a model that never quite delivered the safety or validation I was chasing.

And I’m also starting to recognize that the part of me that still wants to achieve, to prove something, to be exceptional—it hasn’t disappeared. And it hasn’t fully integrated either. But I’m learning not to push it away. I’m trying to meet it with compassion instead of letting it run the show or shoving it into the corner.

That’s where I am now. Not at the end. But not in the middle either. I’m starting to live differently. I’m less rigid. More grounded. A little more at ease. And I’m more interested in what actually feels aligned than what looks impressive.

I’ve stepped far enough back to see the pattern for what it is, and I’m starting to make different choices—from a place of asking what feels aligned instead of what looks impressive. Not always. But more often.

If you’ve ever felt like your effort was supposed to earn you worthiness—like the outcome should have justified the pressure—you’re not alone.

📓 Journal Prompt

What have you worked really hard for—not just because you loved it, but because you thought it would prove something about you? And what did it feel like when the outcome didn’t match the effort?

💬 Companion Post

If this post is about the systems I built to feel worthy, this letter is about the emotional weight those systems placed on a younger version of myself. It’s a short note to the kid who carried all that effort—before he knew there was another way.