A path you chose for someone else’s approval still makes you walk every step of it.

Approval arrives once, usually in a single conversation, and then it is spent. The path stays. You get the mornings, the coursework, the hours nobody else is present for, and the person you were trying to satisfy is not there for any of it. That asymmetry is what makes borrowed goals so heavy.

Ask who you are picturing when you imagine having done this. If the picture is mostly somebody else’s face, that is worth knowing before another year goes in. You can still choose it, just for a reason that will be around on a Tuesday.