I got the apartment I had wanted since I was a kid. A new city, a new kitchen, a pool right outside the balcony, and all of it was mine. Then came the first night, and I sat down on my couch, and the only thing I could hear was my own heartbeat. I felt worse than I have ever felt in my entire life. For a long time I assumed that meant something was wrong with me, so I told myself to be grateful and found things to fill up the silence instead. But that only lasted for so long. Of course I went looking for a study, and what I found is that getting the thing does not do what you think it does, and that it depends entirely on whose goal it was in the first place. That's why you can reach a milestone you spent years planning your life around and feel nothing, and then feel completely on track for two weeks after somebody simply tells you that you did a good job. This one is about the gap that opens up once the milestones stop, why you cannot say any of it out loud without making it weird, and a theory I have about what some of these milestones actually are. live with care 🤎