A smaller, quieter life than your classmates want can still be exactly your size.

Ambition gets treated as a single scale with bigger counting as better, so anybody choosing less is assumed to be settling for it. But a life has a correct size, and the correct size is not the same for everyone. A quieter version with a few people, work you can leave at work, and a small amount of travel is not a failure of nerve. It is a fit, and fits are worth more than scores.

Describe the week you would actually like, in detail, without checking it against anybody. Then start with whichever part is already available.