Quiet Clarity is a 2x/week newsletter and podcast for people who want to build a life of presence, depth, and deliberate intention.
Do you find yourself constantly chasing the approval of others?
That constant need for approval before making decisions.
The exhaustion of performing a role you never auditioned for.
That hollow feeling when everyone likes you but you can't stand yourself.
But you keep conforming.
You keep bending to fit their shape.
You keep searching where the light is brightest.
You keep wondering why you feel so empty inside.
So what if the life you're looking for is already inside you?
Where It Showed Up in My Life
We over-billed a client for a month because we delivered more services than agreed upon.
It was completely my fault. Our accounting function was still being built out, and I'd missed it.
My first instinct? Avoid the conversation entirely. Maybe they wouldn't notice. Maybe I could fix it quietly without the awkwardness.
But that feeling in my chest wouldn't go away.
See, I'd spent years being whoever others needed me to be. The agreeable business owner. The guy who never rocks the boat. The one who keeps everyone comfortable except himself.
It felt safe at first. People liked working with me. I was "easy" to deal with.
But slowly, it became a prison.
I'd lost track of who I actually was beneath all the masks. Every decision filtered through "What will they think?" Every action calculated for maximum approval.
And here I was again, about to hide behind another performance.
But something had shifted in me recently. I'd been learning to face myself, to sit alone without distracting myself with others' expectations.
So I picked up the phone and called the client directly.
"We made a mistake. We over-billed you. It's my fault."
No excuses. No elaborate explanations. Just truth.
I thought he'd be disgusted. What kind of agency doesn't have proper accounting?
What the Wisdom Reveals
This brings me to a story that haunts me.
A policeman sees a drunk man on his hands and knees under a streetlight, searching desperately.
"What are you looking for?" the officer asks.
"My keys," the drunk replies, continuing to pat the ground.
The policeman joins the search. After several minutes with no luck, he asks, "Are you sure you lost them here?"
The drunk looks up. "No, I lost them in the park."
"Then why are you looking here?"
"Because this is where the light is."
The policeman stares at him in disbelief, but the drunk just keeps searching under the streetlight.
This is what we do with our lives.
We search for fulfillment where everyone else is looking. Under the bright lights of success, approval, achievement. Where it's comfortable. Where it's safe. Where others can see us searching.
But we didn't lose ourselves there.
We lost ourselves in the dark park of our own being. In the moments we chose conformity over truth. In the trades we made for acceptance.
Yet we keep searching under the streetlight because at least there we're not alone. At least there we can see. At least there we feel like we're doing something.
The irony cuts deep: We'll never find what we're looking for because we're not looking where we lost it.
The keys to fulfillment aren't in others' approval or society's definitions of success. They're in that dark, scary place where we actually dropped them - inside ourselves.
How I'm Trying to Live Now
What happened when I stopped searching under streetlights?
The client's response to my honest phone call shocked me.
Not only did he understand, but he offered to pay for part of the extra services. Then he sent me a message thanking me for the transparency, saying it made him trust us more.
But here's the real revelation: His response was secondary.
What mattered was how I felt after telling the truth. For the first time in years, I felt aligned. Not performing. Not calculating. Just... real.
That call changed everything about how I approach life and business.
Now when I'm alone, it doesn't feel like loneliness anymore. It feels like coming home. Because I'm not desperately searching for myself in others' reactions - I'm finding myself in my own truth.
The void I'd felt for years? It wasn't because I was missing something external. It was the distance between who I was pretending to be and who I actually am.
Rita Mae Brown said it perfectly: "The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you but yourself."
I'd collected a lot of those rewards. They felt like trophies until I realized they were actually chains.
You know that moment when you realize you've been searching in all the wrong places?
When success feels empty because it's not your definition.
When approval feels hollow because you betrayed yourself to get it.
When you're surrounded by people but feel utterly alone.
When you finally understand the keys were always in your pocket.
That's not failure. That's the beginning of freedom.
The difference between loneliness and being alone is whether you're comfortable with who you find in the silence.
When you live in alignment, loneliness transforms into peaceful solitude. Not because you don't need others, but because you're not using them to avoid yourself.
So try this:
Tonight, sit alone without any distractions for 10 minutes.
Ask yourself: "If no one was watching, who would I choose to be?"
Don't search for the answer under the streetlight of others' expectations.
Search in the dark park of your own truth.
Because that drunk man will never find his keys under that streetlight.
And you'll never find yourself in someone else's approval.
