Success you didn’t choose feels a lot like failure with better lighting.

Getting what somebody else picked for you produces a strange flatness: the result is real, people are pleased, and nothing lands where it should. It is also difficult to talk about, because from the outside it looks like complaining about good news. Plenty of people carry a full trophy shelf and a quiet sense of being in the wrong place.

Run a check on the main thing you are chasing. Who chose it, and would you still want it if the people whose approval it buys were not watching. You may not be able to drop it this year, but you can add one thing that is yours.