Your Early Loves Are Not Random

Driving to and from school drop-offs, lately my kids love to blast the song “Stressed Out” by Twenty One Pilots. As I nod along, I’m struck by how precisely it captures something universal:

“We used to play pretend, give each other different names / We would build a rocket ship and then we’d fly far away / Used to dream of outer space, but now they’re laughin’ at our face, sayin’ ‘Wake up, you need to make money...’”

In the song, they sort of shout the “need to make money” part, which gives it a stickiness, and feels so spot-on.

So many of my emerging leader and midlife clients tell a similar story. They remember loving calligraphy in their native culture, writing fiction with friends, curating yearbooks, singing. One remembered spending hours stretched out on the floor, imagining entire worlds—sketching scenes for a graphic novel only a few would ever see. All of it for the sheer joy of creation.

“Used to” is the quiet heartbreak.

For most of us, somewhere between fourth grade and college, our culture finds a way to corset our creative vitality. What once felt like play becomes something that must justify itself—through earning money, proving its utility, demonstrating its scalability.

Under this amount of pressure, we begin to internalize the idea that what we love is frivolous unless it can be optimized, monetized, or scaled.

And so, piece by piece, the soul’s inclinations get exiled in favor of what is efficient, productive, and rewarded.

But what if your early loves were never random?

What if they were clues, breadcrumbs pointing toward the unique shape of a life that actually fits you?

The work isn’t to turn every creative impulse into a career. It’s to acknowledge it. To make space for it. To let it live again as a form of aliveness, as a way your psyche breathes.

The client who once dreamed of winning a Clio Award returns to sketching campaign concepts with her morning tea, and feels her spark flicker back on.

The one moved by the beauty of calligraphy picks up the pen again, and begins gathering others to experience it alongside her.

These acts may look small from the outside. But inwardly, they are a kind of homecoming.

Because when we return to what we love—even privately, even imperfectly—we remember something essential:

We were never meant to earn our joy.

And something else begins to happen, too.

When you re-engage with what lights you up, you signal to your system that you’re listening again. That you’re willing to follow what’s alive, not just what’s expected.

Energy starts to move. Not in a sudden, dramatic rush—but in a quiet, steady thawing.

What once felt distant or impractical often begins to feel possible again.

Not because you force it into a plan—but because, thread by thread, you begin to loosen the corset… and let yourself breathe freely again.

If this is you, what song has been playing in the background of your life, and what might it be like to change the track?

Perhaps for a little while, you can let the beat shift from pressure to pleasure, and invite your agency back home.