Choosing Depth Over Display

Highlight reels with their shiny results have surely passed your eyes more than once. Promotions announced with a façade of gratitude, carefully curated. Side hustles that appear effortless. The transformations make it seem like it has been only one night between the before and the after. With your work, you are sitting somewhere in between all that noise, wondering if what you are constructing even matters, because it can't be seen yet. 

We exist in a world that favors the visible, the polished, and the nicely-packaged. Success has become what you are expected to show off, and growth is only real if accompanied by evidence. However, what about the works that cannot be taken well in a photo? What about the progress that is a part of your thoughts, habits, and gradually changing perspective? What about those aspects of you that are changing in a manner that you do not understand yet, let alone explain to an audience? 

One is worn out from trying to keep up with a culture that esteems display over depth. It is the pressure to show each step, turn every personal milestone into content, and ensure that the world knows you are going forward even when you yourself are not quite sure where you are heading. It is the persistent impression that if you are not visible, you are losing ground, and if you are not coming up with something shareable, you are wasting time. 

Being on a constant show drains you of the very space you need to grow. The change of a person is not something that happens under the spotlight. It is the period when you still don't know which person you want to be; it takes place in the talks you have with yourself when no one is around, and it occurs in the chaotic middle of things, where you are learning and unlearning and realizing that some of your old ways of thinking no longer fit. 

Development requires secrecy. It needs the opportunity to be uncertain, make mistakes, and take its own time. You cannot hasten depth, and you cannot compel substance to unveil itself on someone else's timeline. Most of the significant changes occur deep down, in those moments when there is nothing noteworthy to be done or said. These are the moments when you read more than you speak, listen more than you perform, and stay with questions instead of frantically looking for answers that sound nice. 

Reducing your speed feels like a revolt nowadays. The choice of working quietly makes it seem as if you are breaking some unspoken rule, but what if that rule itself is the problem? What if the incessant pushing to be seen is actually what keeps you from doing the deeper work that really matters? What if the most critical parts of your journey are the ones that do not require an audience? 

Essentially, this means being considerate enough to realize that some things need not be shared live, and at the same time, not concealing or declining to disclose what you have learned. It refers to the act of permitting yourself to develop in your own way without the necessity of feeling that you have to make a post of every revelation or of turning every difficulty into a story when, in fact, you have not even had the opportunity to understand it by yourself. There are certain things that require time before they can be shared. There are some experiences from which you can only share the lesson after you have lived them. 

The struggle between having substance and putting up a show is real, and it leaves you constantly. Recognition is something you crave; you want people to see the effort you put in, and you want to have some proof that what you are doing is right, but recognition from others cannot substitute the deeper understanding that comes from doing work that is in line with who you are becoming. A show gets attention, but depth develops character, and it is character that will get you through the periods when no one is watching. 

There will be moments when it seems to you that everyone around you is running towards a dazzling thing while you are still sitting with the basics, still figuring out what you really want, and still learning how to be there for yourself before being there for an audience. 

Such times will test your resolve to the extreme. They would make you question whether you are doing enough work, or if you are going fast enough, and whether you should leave the slow work aside and go for something more spectacular right away. But, please do not mistake slow for inactive. Don't consider a quiet moment as unproductive. The work you do in silence is valuable. The changes you are making within yourself, even though they are not visible on a feed, are of great significance. You are not stepping back by choosing depth. Create something durable. 

Maybe, most of the time, the brave thing for you to do is to resist the urge to display your progress, to let yourself be the in-between without the need to justify it or dress it up, to trust that the real work is happening even when there is nothing to be accounted for yet, and to hold the conviction that the person you are becoming is way more than what you can prove at the moment. 

The need to hurry, produce, and make yourself visible will always be there, but it is up to you to decide what you build and how you build it. You may choose to prioritize depth over display, substance over speed, and growth over show. As a result, you get back the freedom to be the person that you are meant to be without asking for validation or praise on your way.


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