You May Be Guilty Of This....

You ever get that feeling that you finally have it figured out? Like… finally, everything makes sense. You’ve fought tooth and nail to get here, crawled through mud, bled on stones, laughed when your insides were crumbling. You look at yourself in the mirror and think, “Yeah… I know what I’m doing now.” And then, boom, life slaps you sideways and reminds you that you don’t know jack. That was me. Proud. Blinded by my own progress. I thought growth meant knowing more. But no one tells you... sometimes, it means unlearning everything you were sure of.

I remember sitting in this cramped office, breathing heavy like the air was thick with invisible needles. My boss, new guy, fresh face, talks with his hands too much, leans in and says, “Have you ever tried doing it this way?” And I swear, something inside me snapped. Not out of anger… not really. It was fear. Like, what if he’s right? What if I’ve been doing it wrong all along? All these years. All this effort. All this damn pride. What if this kid just saw right through me? I nodded. Smiled. Played it cool. But that night I couldn’t sleep. My chest was a war zone. My mind, chaos. It wasn’t even about his suggestion. It was the audacity of it. The nerve of someone implying I could be better. Like I hadn’t given my soul to this thing. Like I hadn’t paid for it with my time, my sanity, my everything…

But here’s the thing, I did try it his way. Just to prove him wrong. It worked. And I hated how it worked. Because it made me feel like a fool. Like I could’ve done it better this whole time if I had just, listened.

That realization? It wasn’t freeing. It was devastating. It shook something old and bitter inside me. How many other voices had I ignored because they didn’t sound like mine? You know what’s hard? Sitting with your ego and watching it bleed. Watching it shrivel up because someone else saw something you didn’t.

That’s the kind of pain that doesn't scream, it whispers. It tells you, you are not finished yet. You are not perfect. You are not the master of your own little universe. But somewhere in that wreckage… there’s freedom.

It took time. Still takes time. I still flinch when someone says, “Can I make a suggestion?” My gut says run. But I stay. I listen. I breathe through the burn. Because maybe, just maybe, they’re holding a key I didn’t even know I needed.

You don’t have to agree with everything. You don’t have to change just because someone said so. But listen. Please. Listen like your future depends on it. Because sometimes it does... Truth is... being open to improvement isn’t weakness. It’s one of the bravest damn things you’ll ever do. And it’s lonely... it’s messy... but it’s real.

So if you’re standing at that crossroads, if someone just shook your pride to its bones, don’t shut down. Lean in. Let your ego bleed. That’s how better things grow.

Yeah… let it bleed.

Let it crawl down your chest, stain your shirt, ruin that pristine version of yourself you’ve been polishing for years. Because that version? That version was built to survive, not to evolve. And survival... it teaches you to grip tight, to hold on, to shut out anything that sounds like criticism, even if it’s truth disguised as discomfort.

I used to flinch at feedback. Not because I was stubborn, but because I was scared. Scared that if I let even one crack show, everything would collapse. That people would see the holes in me. That I wasn’t as good as I pretended to be. That I was… replaceable. That word, it haunted me.

But you know what’s worse than being replaceable?

Being stuck.

Living the same year on repeat and calling it growth. Wearing your experience like armor and using it to deflect every new idea. I did that. I shut people down with my resume. With my scars. I’d raise my eyebrow like, “You think you know better than me?” But sometimes… they did.

And I missed out on so much because of that.

One time, a friend, someone younger, softer-spoken, not the kind of person I usually took seriously, said, “You always talk like you’re finished.” That gutted me. Because he was right. I acted like the story had already been written. Like the only edits left were spelling mistakes.

But what if we’re not stories to be edited? What if we’re still in the draft? Still wild, still forming, still burning through chapters we don’t even understand yet?

That changes everything…

It means the shame isn’t in not knowing, it’s in refusing to learn.

It means your worst moments, the ones that make you want to disappear, might be the exact ones that lead you somewhere better, if you let them.

I’ve had strangers shift my world in a single sentence.

I’ve had enemies give me clarity I never got from friends.

I’ve had failures that whispered truths success never could.

But I had to stop defending who I was long enough to become who I could be.

There’s no trophy for having all the answers. No crown for being unshakable. There’s just you, looking back at your life, asking, “Did I grow? Or did I just harden?”

So no, I’m not finished. I’m still listening. Still breaking. Still rebuilding.

And if you’re reading this, fighting that sting in your chest, that voice saying “But I know better,” pause.

Breathe.

Ask yourself one question: What if they’re right?

What if the version of you that’s waiting on the other side of humility… is everything you ever wanted to become?

Yeah…

Let that sink in.