There’s a cost to not being yourself that most people never calculate.

It doesn’t show up immediately.
It doesn’t look dramatic.
It just quietly compounds in the background.

For a long time, I didn’t lie about who I was.
I edited myself.

I amplified what worked.
I minimized what complicated things.
I exaggerated the traits that got rewarded.

Not fake.
Just distorted.

And I didn’t do it for power or influence. Those have never been my drivers.
I did it because financial insecurity is terrifying.

When you move a lot growing up, you learn something early:
You can become anyone.

Quiet. Loud. Funny. Serious.
You choose.

First impressions carry enormous psychological weight. People will spend years reinforcing the version of you they first met, even when it no longer fits.

That skill served me.
Until it didn’t.

Because performance has a carrying cost.

At some point, the energy required to maintain the version of you people love exceeds the energy required to actually live your life.

That’s when things start looking good on the outside and feeling wrong underneath.

Questions worth sitting with:

Where are you editing yourself to stay safe?

Which parts of you are rewarded—and which are quietly ignored?

What is this costing you privately?

You can survive for a long time pretending.
You just can’t thrive there.