Ever since I was a kid, I was always seeking attention. I will do anything to be the center of anything—being talked about, noticed, looked at. School, work, the town square—it didn't matter. The stage had to have me somewhere in the spotlight. And I did something stupid. One of the first lies I told myself was that I couldn't see well. That I was short-sighted. I wanted that label because people paid attention to kids who needed glasses. There was something about it—the way adults would fuss over you, peers would ask questions, you became someone worth noticing. Even if it was pity, even if it was concern, it was something. It was validation.
That "stupidest fool of a kid decision" made 37 years ago has ended me in a position where I genuinely cannot see without my eye glasses now. The lie became truth. Whether through psychosomatic mechanisms, genuine degradation from wearing lenses when unnecessary, or some cosmic joke about self-fulfilling prophecies—I don't know. What I know is that today, decades later, I'm physically dependent on frames sitting on my nose because I wanted attention as a child.
That one lie wasn't isolated. It was one of thousands—maybe tens of thousands—of decisions that have shaped my daily existence. Choices I made to gain approval. To be the funny one. To be the troubled one. To be the interesting one. Any role works as long as it puts me in someone else's awareness. Dozens of ways I've destroyed myself. Some visible. Some invisible. Relationships burned. Opportunities lost. Trust eroded. Dreams deferred. All in service of being noticed.
Here's the brutal truth I've come to accept: I should blame no one else. Is it fair to ask? Absolutely. Did my environment play a part? Maybe. Maybe there were empty spaces in my childhood home that screamed louder than words ever could. Maybe there were gaps where love should have been, leaving a hunger I tried to fill with noise and spectacle and manufactured crises. Maybe other people failed me before I started failing myself.
But here's the thing about accountability—it doesn't matter if someone else started the fire. At some point, you're the one holding the match. And at some point, you become responsible for putting it out. Looking back, after all these years, all this damage, all this self-inflicted chaos... it's all on me.
Seeking attention. Seeking love. Seeking approval. These aren't character flaws—these are addictions. And like any addiction, they start small. Harmless. Even noble. A child wants attention because they're wired to believe survival depends on it. A teenager craves approval because belonging feels like oxygen. An adult keeps chasing validation because... because what? Because they forgot who they were before they started performing for strangers?
The cycle continues long after it serves any purpose. I found myself doing this in elementary school, high school. In college. At my first job. My second job. In relationships. Friendships. Social gatherings. Everywhere. Always needing that hit of recognition, acknowledgment, proof that I exist because someone else is looking at me. It's pathetic. It's tragic. It's human. And here's where it gets darker. Because this isn't just my story anymore. This is our story.
I watch the people around me—friends, family, young folks starting out—and I see the same patterns playing out. They're not copying me; they're inheriting the same sickness that I inherited. A culture that teaches us we are only valuable when someone is watching. Only real when someone validates us. Only worthy when someone approves.
The future generation is deeming their own future to darkness and doom because they haven't unlearned what I never learned until too late. They're scrolling through feeds, waiting for likes, crafting personas instead of building lives, measuring worth through external metrics that change every six months. They'll burn out. They'll collapse under the weight of performance. They'll wonder why they feel empty despite having more eyes on them than any generation in history. It could be anything. Fame. Followers. Grades. Promotions. Likes. Shares. Comments. Retweets. Awards. Titles. Every form of currency that exists is really just a proxy for the same thing: I want you to notice me so I can believe I matter.
You see, hollywood Knows Better Than Us. What kills me most is that we've been warned. Repeatedly. Relentlessly. Hollywood and the entertainment industry portray this exact dynamic in movies, dramas, films, shows and even in the lives of the artist in real life—we've seen the breakdown of the star who crumbled under pressure. The influencer whose entire identity collapsed when cameras stopped rolling. The artist who sold their soul for fame and woke up alone at forty.
We've watched this play out thousands of times. Movies like Nightcrawler, Black Swan, The Social Network, Fight Club, Boogie Nights, Birdman. TV shows like Entourage, Euphoria, Succession. Documentaries about celebrities who destroyed themselves for more attention. We've consumed hundreds of hours of cautionary tales told in drama and film and yet we learned nothing. Despite thousands of portrayals of this pattern across cinema history, we keep repeating the same damn cycle. We treat each new celebrity meltdown as fresh tragedy rather than evidence of something broken in the foundation itself.
There's a deeper horror here that keeps me up at night. Look at history. Ancient civilizations that collapsed because their leaders became obsessed with legacy over substance. Rome spending fortunes on gladiator spectacles while infrastructure crumbled. Mayans prioritizing monuments over sustainable agriculture. Empires expanding beyond their capacity because pride outweighed pragmatism. We study these dead civilizations with detached academic curiosity. We marvel at their ruins. We lecture students about hubris. We nod sagely at warnings about power corrupting.
And then we go home and scroll Instagram for three hours, desperate to post a picture of dinner that looks good enough to convince strangers our lives are meaningful. We're doing the exact same thing. Just smaller scale. More intimate destruction. Individual ruin instead of empire-wide apocalypse—but it's the same engine driving us toward the cliff. Thousands of years of human failure, and we still haven't internalized the lesson.
After thirty-seven years of glasses, after decades of chasing approval, after burning bridges and burning out and burning everything down—here's what I finally understand: You are not what anyone thinks of you. You are not your follower count. Your job title. Your relationship status. Your accomplishments. Your failures. Your appearance. Your bank account. Your productivity. Your visibility. Those things are costumes. They are armor. They are performance. The real you the core you is whatever remains when you strip all of that away. When no one is watching. When the applause stops. When the camera turns off. When your phone dies. When you're alone in a room with nothing to prove to anyone. If that version of you isn't enough, then nothing will ever be enough. And I spent thirty-seven years believing otherwise.
So what now? What does recovery look like? First, I stop blaming. Blaming the environment, blaming my parents, blaming society, blaming Hollywood, blaming everyone except the person standing in the mirror. Accountability starts with owning what was mine to own.
Second, I recognize the pattern. Every time I feel that itch to perform, to exaggerate, to manufacture crisis, to become the center—I catch myself. I pause. I ask why. I sit with the discomfort of feeling invisible for five minutes. It feels like withdrawal because it is withdrawal.
Third, I build a life that works even when no one sees it. Small acts of kindness that go unacknowledged. Skills developed privately. Relationships nurtured without posting about them. Work done for its own sake, not for its résumé value.
Fourth, I forgive myself for being a kid who thought attention was love. For a long time, I didn't know the difference. Neither did my teachers. My parents. My friends. None of us knew better, so none of us taught better.
Finally, I hope. Not for redemption. Not for a happy ending. But simply that maybe, just maybe, the people who come after me will find a different path. That they'll recognize the trap before they fall in. That they'll choose connection over validation. Presence over performance. Being over appearing.
You see, funny thing about glasses. After wearing them for thirty-seven years, I used to think they obscured vision. Burden. Limitation. Something separating me from seeing the world "naturally." Now I see differently. The glasses aren't distorting reality—they're correcting it. Without them, everything is blurred. Unfocused. Misleading. With them, I see edges. Details. Truth.
Maybe this whole life has been the same process. Maybe the humiliation, the shame, the self-sabotage, the decades of chasing ghosts—that was the lens grinding itself down, shaping itself into something that can finally focus. I'm learning to see clearly now. Not everyone believes in redemption arcs. Not everyone deserves forgiveness. But me? I'm giving it to myself anyway. Most importantly I ask for the Lord forgiveness.
Thirty-seven years of fog. Finally clearing up. The day we stop performing for each other might be the day we start actually connecting. If this resonated with you, you're not alone. I'm still learning how to exist without audience, and your stories help me remember I'm human too.
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Opinion