'I've Always Been a Hopeless Romantic, But Should I Surrender My Career For Love?'

Your anxiety is generated in part by your addictive, escapist mindset.

Tout est illusion peut-être (All is illusion maybe) (1973), Dorothea Tanning

Hi Polly,

It seems all my ambition is tampered by the silly notions of romantic love I’ve been fed from a very early age. Ironically, I am God’s least favorite soldier when it comes to matters of the heart. I’ve spent most of my young adult and adult-adult life hopping from one relationship to another. I never sought out love. It always found me, and, usually, I was the one who left first.

But even before that, I remember myself as this wildly enthusiastic kid who dreamed of growing up quickly, of becoming an independent adult. My mom recently found my first-grade coursework, which included a letter I wrote to my future self at six years old. In my own words, I wrote, "I can't wait to grow up and get a jop!!!" Spelling may not have been my forte back then, but I was full of big dreams and unshakable determination, Polly. Then came my teenage years, when my interests drifted from the concrete jungle of career ambition to fairytales filled with cheesy, choreographed dance sequences and cloying notions of true love. This wasn’t random. It was the product of inconsistent parenting and an unhealthy exposure to Bollywood movies that I think rewired my brain in all the wrong ways.

When I was broken up with for the first time — at 24, after a toxic relationship — I hit rock bottom. The life I had dreamed of with that particular garbage can of a man blew up overnight. For the first time, I was forced to look at myself, and I barely recognized what I saw. I had diluted myself into an amalgamation of the people I had dated — their dreams, their goals, their ambition. I was a husk of a person, Polly, with barely any individuality.

It’s not like I gave myself away completely. Even in that last relationship, I was juggling undergrad and two jobs. I’ve always been kinetic, incapable of sitting idly, but all my energy was being consumed by satisfying the needs of a narcissistic man. That emotionally manipulative relationship drained me of my confidence, and when it ended, I felt like I had nothing left. It was the worst moment of my life, and I knew I had to change stat if I wanted a good one. Cue “She’s All That” makeover montage: I rebuilt myself from scratch.

Two years later, I’m a different person. I have a postgraduate degree from one of the top universities in the country, I made the Dean’s Honor List, and I work as a consultant at a Fortune 500 company. I am absolutely incredible at my job, I make good money, and my career prospects look amazing. But more importantly, I’ve been single for two whole years, a first for me. I realized that my endless need for a partner was born out of a hatred for being alone, of sitting with my own thoughts. But over the past two years, I’ve sorted myself out. I’ve undone 25 years of toxic thinking, something even years of therapy couldn’t manage. I invited the voices in my head to sit with me, and, believe it or not, we’ve become friends now. I’ve also started writing again, which helps me see things more clearly. Now, I’m much more committed to what I set out to do and can’t stand complacency at all. It’s made me impatient with people who approach life half-heartedly.

For the first time in my life, I’m proud of who I’ve become. I’m the person who gives pep talks now. I’m the most accomplished person in my family. And yet… love has found its way back into my life, and I’m terrified it will dilute me again. I don’t want to lose myself, but I find myself awake at 5 a.m. saying a plethora of cringy, mind-rotting things to a man when I have to be at work in a few hours. The giddy schoolgirl is back, and she’s demanding to be consumed by love, demolishing the hard, unshakeable demeanor I’ve spent two years building. I won’t lie, Polly — it feels amazing! Being in love feels amazing!!! I feel like a junkie who’s finally had the good stuff after years of being clean.

In the past two years, I shoved aside all the ridiculous ideas of love to focus on my ambition. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done for myself, but it was also lonely — a long, hard, lonely struggle. I had made peace with the idea that love might destroy me or my ambition because the symptoms often feel the same. I forget to eat and sleep for days; I feel the same butterflies from getting a good evaluation at work as I do from a man showing up at my door with flowers. The truth is, for as long as I can remember, I have always been this all-gas-no-brakes person. I like being consumed by whatever I do. I’ve never been able to like anything — or anyone — a casual amount, and I am afraid I never will.

This new man… he’s different. He’s someone who reappeared in my life after years. Back then, we fell in love, but it was a “right person, wrong time” situation. I had to walk away. Now we’re grown-ups, and suddenly marriage is on the table. He’s gentle, kind — the kind of man who doesn’t come by often, let alone in my life. Ironically, with him, I don’t lose weight because he’s always feeding me. But I am losing sight of myself, and I can feel the slippery slope beneath me.

My next logical step was supposed to be a new job, one that would take me out of this country where I’ve been born and raised. I dream of packing up my cat and moving somewhere new, somewhere bigger. But he’s here, and with him, all those silly, fairytale notions of love are creeping back in, taking root again. I’m standing at a crossroads, Polly, and I don’t know which road to take.

My heart aches for love and companionship in this rat race to the top, but I can’t slow down now. My life is taking off. Six-year-old me is finally getting what she wanted, but what about teenage me, the one who was lonely and lost and always ended up with the wrong people? I’ll be 27 this year, and in the cultural context of my world, I’ve had a clock ticking over my head since I was 22, telling me to get married. I want the fiery, all-consuming ambition and the kind of love that doesn’t leave me shrinking into less of myself. But do I even have the capacity to juggle them without being consumed by one and being complacent in the other? And if it comes down to a choice, Polly, which one is worth keeping? Which one do I let go?

All Gas, No Brakes

Dear AGNB,

You’ve set up an imaginary, binary problem (love or career?) based on imaginary conditions. Inside your mind, there is a “rat race to the top” in which you “can’t slow down.” There is a “clock ticking over [your] head.” Ambition is “fiery and all-consuming.” Love means “shrinking into less” of yourself or “losing sight” of yourself. You also can’t stand complacency which seems to include hating moderation, balance, hesitation. I know you’ve learned to sit with yourself and reflect, but you overall mindset is all about optimization. You are anti-flaw, anti-failure, anti-compromise, but you also believe that prioritizing one area of your life always means failing at or compromising your gains in another area.

In other words, you’ve set up your life as a win-lose puzzle on every front. If you surrender your life to love you’ll lose your chance at success and you’ll lose yourself in the process. If you follow your ambitions you’ll be doomed to spend your life alone and that ticking clock will only grow louder.

These extremes in your worldview spring from the fact that you approach everything in your life in an escapist, addictive way: You throw yourself into work in part to lose your longing for romance and your awareness of your deep need for connection. Then you throw yourself into love in order to blot out your other needs, and you ignore sleep, ignore your job, and abandon your normal schedule like a rebellious child who’s tired of her strict parents’ rules.

And OF COURSE love feels amazing! It’s the only time you allow yourself to be frivolous, relax, follow your impulses instead of your rules. Love is a realm of strong emotions and indulgent sensations that you absolutely don’t allow yourself to enjoy under any other circumstances.

When I was in my twenties, I was like you. I couldn’t figure out why I was so obsessed with romance, but the answer was obvious: When I was alone (not with a boyfriend and not socializing), I forced myself to be productive and serious. I wasn’t allowed to eat something indulgent or relax or watch a movie or have a drink or wander around the world by myself. I had to be advancing my goals, getting shit done. I was allowed to write if it led to some insights or growth (intellectual, of course, not emotional — there is a difference). But if my writing felt like an indulgence with no purpose, I would quickly abandon it.

I defined pleasure and satisfaction as coming from outside forces. It didn’t even occur to me that I was in charge, that I could want things other people didn’t approve of or give me, that I could do things that only had value to me and me alone.

But if I was in love, I was allowed to wander around all day just talking and eating and drinking and relaxing and making out. Because of this, I often paired up with stoners and drinkers and people who were obsessed with music or movies or non-traditional jobs. I immersed myself in their impulse-driven, structure-less lives and then wondered why I always felt so adrift, why I always disappeared completely, why I couldn’t locate my own needs and desires from within the relationship.

The problem was that I associated my own needs and desires – and thoughts and feelings and ambitions – with anxiety and loneliness. I loved to escape into someone else’s world because it kept me from having to face myself, which included facing my depression, my shame, my big doubts about my life, and my self-hatred.

You’ve conquered the first part of this problem by learning to sit with yourself. That’s a great start to loving every side of yourself including your flaws, your challenges, and your shame. But I would urge you to move away from the mindset of “I’m better now” and “I’m always making more progress” and make more room for hesitation, doubts, setbacks, and even ambivalence. Because as long as you treat HITTING THE BRAKES as a kind of moral failure or mistake, you’re going to have trouble allowing your full, complex self to breathe freely and take its time to adjust to shifting life situations.

Giving your layered, complicated body and mind space to just live in the world without feeling anxious to SOLVE EVERY PROBLEM requires loosening your grip on the false binary you’ve presented in your letter. That means losing this strict religion you’ve built for yourself, the one that says that everything needs to happen on a certain timeline, the one that says staying in your country is a failure and being in love means surrendering yourself or disappearing and being a success means all gas and no brakes until you reach the top. I think you need to smash the ticking clock and take your foot off the gas. I think you need to slow down and get to know your shame, your anxieties, and your fears.

Because shame has its foot on this gas pedal. That’s not you. It doesn’t serve you to escape into middle-of-the-night conversations before you have to work. It doesn’t serve you to believe that this good man will either wreck your life and diminish your sense of self or he’ll need to be left in the dust. The absolutes and extremes of the addictive, escapist fantasy life you live in don’t support a balanced, calm, loving life with real people in it. They don’t even support true love or ambition in a sustainable way.

In order to build a balanced life, you have to have a vision of everything you want, and you have to dare to assert that this vision is possible. You have to say to yourself and others, “I want real love and I want a great career and my belief is that I can have both.” That might sound like MORE of a fantasy, but it’s the opposite: It’s an assertion of the strength of your desires. You very badly want the thrills of love and you also want the adventure and challenge of an amazing career. Accept that this is you. It doesn’t mean that you have to work much harder with no breaks and no doubts and no pauses to take in reality. It means you have to be honest, patient, direct, and deeply attuned to the world around you.

You have to say to your boyfriend, “I need to make sure that I assert my needs, desires, and limits in this relationship instead of sliding into an abyss with you. I think that’s what will make BOTH of us happy — building a solid life together instead of hiding out inside a fantasy.” You have to state your needs out loud and feel the strength and clarity that brings you.

In your daily life, balance requires you to give yourself a break from work, a break from intellectualizing your emotions, a break from analyzing the future, a break from this optimization mindset that seems to view compromise and rest as a form of weakness and retreat. I’m wondering if there’s some erasure of self in your childhood that echoes in this relentless path you’ve chosen for yourself. You feel better when you’re fully enmeshed and consumed. I believe there also might be people-pleasing and perfectionism in this picture, telling you that success and love are impossible unless you erase your needs, make yourself smaller, play a part, and pretend that you want nothing but what’s best for your loved one or your boss. My guess is that you grew up in the company of a strong personality who asked you to be a YES MAN.

What’s ironic is that the ego rewards of your career success serve as a kind of drug that keeps you high and keeps you living in the fantasy that you can stay high forever, that nothing matters more than mattering. These rewards are mirrored in the ego rewards of falling in love, which tell you that you can feel consumed by passion and love forever and nothing matters more than romance and being adored. I understand the pull of both of these forces. I don’t even want you to abandon them completely! Enjoy this moment in your life. It’s rare to feel so ecstatic and proud and on fire and passionate! Savor every minute of it.

But don’t let that fire trick you into thinking that life needs to stay exciting and perfect and passionate forever or you’ve failed. Use that fire to build a slightly more relaxing, balanced understanding of your unique, long-term plan for embracing an ambitious, loving, fulfilling life. Use the fire to fuel your growing belief in yourself, your blossoming voice, your new ability to stand up for what you want and need. Don’t let the fire inflame your insecurities and anxieties and imaginary demons.

Relaxation and mindfulness are not the path to complacency. Balance is not the path to surrender. Mature, open, honest love is not the path to weakness or erasure. It’s time to use your romantic imagination to build a vision of your future that’s less extreme and potentially tragic, less all or nothing, less fearful and ashamed in the face of potential mistakes and setbacks.

Becoming someone who knows how to hit the brakes occasionally — who knows how to say no, who knows how to invent a new path forward that no one else could see, who knows how to encourage other people to confront their own fears and anxieties — won’t turn you into a loveless failure. It will transform your already formidable strengths into something more resilient, more at peace, more attuned to the people around you.

Balance, patience, realism, and assertiveness will transform you from a striver into a leader. I want you to be a leader, because that’s the truest expression of your passion and your ambition. Your drive is a manifestation of your destined role in this world. But you have to be conscious and attuned and realistic and not impulsive and self-destructive and ashamed if you want to lead well and invite real, deep connections into your life. You have to confront your ego and challenge it and not let it push you into fantastical, perfectionistic escape routes. You have to show up every day and communicate your vision, edit your articles of faith, adjust to conditions on the ground, and demonstrate your love for and faith in the people around you.

It's hard work. It’s not about instantly knowing the exact perfect path. It’s not about sacrificing everything for success or love. But the good news is that you’ll have more love and more success and, most importantly, more satisfaction in your life when you extract yourself from the escapist cycle of self-abandonment and shame and fear of failure that you’re caught in now.

Your current struggle lies at the center of what you have to offer. This world has lost sight of what it takes to feel satisfied, and connected, and loved. When you embody these skills — how to relish the present, how to connect deeply with real, flawed people, how to show up and love in spite of your anxieties and fears — every obstacle in front of you becomes smaller. You lead by example, every day, just by welcoming reality, with all of its ugliness and horrors and flaws, and sharing your optimism, energy, intensity, and love of solving tough problems with the world.

I know that sounds pretty glowing and dreamy and idealistic. I know it’s hard to believe that you can balance everything without falling to pieces. It’s not that life won’t be tough or painful or confusing at times. It’s just that you’re a person who’s designed to crawl over mountains of sharp knives and garbage to find the sun. Honor that and trust it. It’s real, and the more you believe that, the more you’ll enjoy the difficulties and joys that lie ahead.

So pump the brakes a little. Let in some air. Focus on patience and observation. Notice the times when you lose yourself, and focus on moving back into your body, increasing your awareness of the moment, and allowing the imperfect contours of the world to be what they are without trying to control them. The more you calmly connect to who you are and where you are, the easier it will be to assert your beliefs, desires, and boundaries without fear. When you show up and you’re calm and direct, choices become simpler. Relationships become simpler. Career paths feel easier.

This is your year to ground yourself, to trust yourself, to confront your shame and blossom in the face of your fears. That work will be difficult and slow and painful, but it will inform everything you do from this moment forward. You were built for this hard work and you were built for this joy. Believe it.

Polly

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