From a young age, we enter a world full of structure. It begins at home, carries into school, and becomes so familiar that we barely question its presence. That is partly because society has long accepted that structure brings order and safety. And to some extent, it really does. But when structure becomes too much, especially too early, it starts to feel like a script. You stop being curious. You start performing.

This shows up most clearly in how we experience school. Education, in its original sense, might have been designed to support growth and learning. But over time, it became something heavier. Something layered in abstractions. You go from being taught how to think to being trained to meet expectations.[1]

You are assumed that by high school, you should already know your direction. You should have chosen a path. But not everyone moves at the same pace. Some people need more time. Others simply do not have the exposure or awareness to make informed choices. The structure they are in does not give them room to see clearly. Instead, it wraps them in ideas and timelines that are more abstract than real. This often leads to a drift. Many have to make decisions right after high school and end up venturing into unknown paths, hoping they will turn out to be the right ones.

The problem is that these systems have their own internal metrics. Inside the structure, these metrics seem to hold value. But when you step outside into the real world, they don't always translate. If your identity was built entirely around these academic metrics, then the transition becomes difficult. The moment you realize the outside world doesn’t care about grades or gold stars, it can shake your entire sense of self.

This is where identity becomes a key point. It’s the trigger. When identity is built inside a structure, it becomes hard to separate who you are from how you performed within that system.

Interestingly, this is also why average or below-average students often perform better over longer horizons. They were never wrapped too tightly in that structure. They didn’t get addicted to validation. They had more space to move, to adapt, to wander. They weren’t over-optimized in one dimension. And in the real world, it’s the multi-dimensional skills that pay off, creativity, initiative, resilience, adaptability, not test scores.

On the other hand, someone who chases metrics too hard can end up stuck. They may only feel comfortable in environments where validation is part of the system. So they gravitate toward professions that offer that. Jobs where roles are predefined, performance is measured clearly, and the path is laid out.[2] They might not necessarily love the work, but they love the feeling of being validated again. They are recreating school in the adult world.

There is another layer that shapes this. It comes from parenting. Many parents unintentionally project their own dreams and insecurities onto their children. They imagine what they would have done in the same situation. And they start to speak from that place. It sounds like support, but it often becomes pressure. If the child adapts to that voice, they start shaping their identity not from within, but based on someone else’s unmet hopes.

From the outside, everything might look perfect. The education, the job, the lifestyle. But inside, something feels missing. Because somewhere along the way, the choices were never really yours.

The key might be to slowly reclaim direction. Not by rebelling for the sake of it, but by noticing what pulls you without external reward. What you’re curious about when no one is watching. That’s usually the path worth following. It might not come with immediate structure or recognition, but it’s real. And over time, reality compounds.

Most people don’t even question the system [3], they just try harder to win at it. But the more you win at something that doesn’t matter to you, the further you drift from yourself.

Feeling constrained? Maybe it’s the metrics talking, not you.

Notes

[1] For me, this became evident in high school. It was completely different. The school I went to was a good place that helped me wander, and somehow curiosity was still there throughout schooling. But the tension around expectations started with these standard gatekeeping exams. Learning for the sake of learning was clear until about ninth grade, but tenth grade became more of a grind focused on this gatekeeping exam, so priorities shifted. After tenth grade, the environment became even more transactional.

[2] Take medicine, law, corporate jobs. People often enter these fields not necessarily because they are drawn to the work itself, but because they know exactly what steps to take and what rewards they will get. You go to the right school, pass the right exams, and hit the right targets. But eventually that cycle gets exhausting if it is not aligned with who you really are.

[3] This could mean tearing down major parts of one’s identity and the things one has spent years building. It’s like questioning one’s deepest beliefs and values, and letting go of anything that doesn’t genuinely reflect who one truly is.