Why I Was Never Enough, Until This One Thing Shifted

Undoing unworthiness + navigating paradoxical advice

Jul 17, 2026

I spent most of my life trying to be the perfect version of a million shoulds. The shoulds of my parents. The shoulds of my teachers. The shoulds of most bestselling, champion, expert people who had mastered some part of life, or the keys to awakening.

They were all well-intentioned. All grounded in real bodies of wisdom. I explored neuroscience, psychology, mindfulness, yoga, indigenous healing practices, and plenty of others.

I wasn’t obsessed with personal development, per se. What I was after was actually quite practical, albeit hard to put into words.

From as far back as I can remember, I’ve felt this deep, visceral, heavy energy inside me. A kind of darkness that honestly seemed beyond my life and my full understanding. It felt constricting. It felt consuming. Not in a depression kind of way, where it’s hard to get out of bed or feel inspired. No, most of my life I’ve felt very inspired, full of life in a lot of ways.

I hope this is making sense. We don’t really have language for it.

But throughout all of it, I always felt at odds with myself. A kind of sadness, anger, and fear that resulted in my feeling weird. Insecure. Full of doubt and criticism.

No matter how far I got in my life, it remained. And over time, it felt like it would overshadow whatever progress I made — whether that was achieving something, healing something, or even having an impact in the world.

The Best-Selling Advice Itself Is Part of the Problem

Here’s the thing you don’t really hear about. Most of the advice of our day only makes the situation worse.

Simple example. Say you notice a heavy emotion moving through you. What should you do?

Embrace it?

Process it?

Transform it?

Honor it?

Ignore it?

Talk to it?

Think your way through it?

Or feel it?

Chances are good there’s a bestselling book on each one. Trust me, I’ve tried most of them.

When I hit a low point in 2015, I started to notice that the advice out there was full of contradictions. Paradoxes that drove my mind crazy.

Should you go after your dreams and change the world for the better, or just be, and embrace what is? Put the oxygen mask on yourself first, or be a servant leader?

I could go on.

My point isn’t to criticize the truths of our day. It’s that they masquerade a much bigger problem — the very one I was navigating.

If You Figure That One Out, Let Me Know

In 2016 I started interviewing people, hoping to make sense of it. Years of asking people how they navigated the contradictions led to the same answer, over and over: “If you figure that one out, let me know.”

So I devoted ten years to it. And I started to see that every single person I interviewed — rich or poor, young or old, educated or not — was confronting a handful of the same underlying paradoxes. I even wrote a book about how to navigate them more smoothly.

I thought once I figured them out, the heaviness would subside. I thought my life would change dramatically.

It didn’t. My day-to-day got a bit more organized, a bit more inspired, a bit more spiritually grounded. But deep down, most of it still felt weighed down by that same dissonance.

That’s when I actually started to feel down. Like I was losing my mojo. It was hard to explain to anyone, because honestly it seemed like nothing would fully get rid of that energy. It seemed like I was cursed or the laws of the universe just didn’t apply to me.

An Unexpected Realization

Over the last year, my life twisted and turned in interesting ways to bring me to a sobering point where I looked at every possible bit of advice with a kind of “what’s the point.”

And that’s when I had the most unexpected realization.

I wish I could say the sky lit up and thunder trumpeted a signal from God. It was more subtle than that. I simply realized I had spent my entire life — over 45 years — trying to succeed, and heal, and awaken my way to the point where I’d finally be okay. Feel enough on the inside. Okay enough to connect with what I felt in my heart, and to honor it in how I went about my day.

I realized everything I tried was a step. A step to get to some point up ahead where then I’d be able to be how I wanted to be. Free. Healthy. Safe. Secure. Content. At peace.

Whether it was Tony Robbins telling me to step boldly toward my dreams or deep shamanic work healing old shadows and wounds — they were both still steps. Steps I could take again and again and again, thinking: if I just do that one, then I’ll be okay.

It doesn’t matter if you chase your dreams and achieve every one of them, not if you’re still carrying around the same energy inside that says you have to get there, up ahead, in order to truly connect to and honor what’s alive in you.

After ten years of ruthlessly searching for the right recipe or framework to feel okay, I saw that the one thing I’d ultimately want with all the success, healing, or awakening would be to savor and experience my life fully in this moment. To connect deeply with myself and others. To dance with life, today!

It sounds so simple. Almost too simple. But that was the deepest wish in my heart. And it was there throughout my life. It was just buried under a lot of conditioning that said it’s the payoff, the thing that comes after whatever it is that gets me there.

Understanding Paradoxes Differently

And that’s when I finally understood the real purpose of paradoxes.

I spent ten years trying to resolve them. As if they were pieces of the ultimate puzzle that would reveal the secret key to feeling truly alive and at peace within.

But paradoxes aren’t meant to be solved. They aren’t a math equation. You can conceptually understand them, and life, until you’re blue in the face. The whole point is to experience them, because in experiencing them, you’re experiencing life.

Here’s what I mean.

The night after my wife and I lost our first pregnancy, we were at the lowest point we’ve ever been. I remember lying down in bed, shutting off our phones to stop the calls of condolence. And my hand found my wife’s. Lying there in our moment of greatest suffering, I felt a level of connection with her I had never experienced before. I have never felt closer to another human being in my life.

That’s a paradoxical situation. And yet it’s not a contradiction I need to understand. It’s something I’m here to experience.

The paradox is a gift. It only feels like a trap when you’re trying to get through it to some point up ahead where you hope you won’t have to face it again.

I’m not saying don’t go after anything. Go. Pursue the dream. That’s part of how it moves you. But the moment you try to master one half of a paradox so you’re finally done with it, that’s the moment it turns on you. Master “just be” and “embracing life,” and sooner or later a wave of inspiration will rise up inside you making you want to go out and change something in the world. And vice versa.

That’s not a trap. It’s the rhythm of life. The paradox isn’t asking us to pick a side or a single recipe. It’s asking us to move differently through it.

So What Actually Changed for Me Is Quite Small

I notice when I’m in “in order to” mode. I need to figure this out, in order to. I need to make this shift, in order to. When I catch that energy now, I stop and ask a different question. Not what am I doing this in order to get. Just: what do I truly want here? How do I want to engage this?

A few ways that’s shown up.

I say more of what I want. Sometimes that’s telling my wife I’d really like to eat out, even though we don’t have a good reason to. Sometimes it’s saying what I actually mean in its raw form, instead of waiting for the smoother version. Sometimes it’s taking an opportunity to put myself out there when normally I’d hesitate. Small, simple ways to honor what I truly want in the moment.

I also stopped identifying with that dark energy inside me. I always thought it was getting in the way. It wasn’t. It still shows up at times. But now, when it does, I meet it with compassion. I offer it some kindness, the way you would with a kid who’s really upset and speaks a different language than you. And the crazy part is, the moment I do, it usually dissipates. Why? I don’t know.

And for the first time in my life, I don’t care or need to know why. Because the shackle or burden was never the energy itself. It was identifying with it, thinking it was me, or a part of me, in some way.

And Therein Lies the Ultimate Shift Underneath All of This

It’s a choice. We all have a choice. It stares us in the face every single day. Will we connect to and honor what’s in our heart today? Or will we find a reason not to, in order to do or finish something else?

Now, when I say connect to and honor what’s in your heart, I don’t mean quit your job tomorrow because it sucks. I don’t mean ask for the divorce, or book the trip when finances are tight. That’s just asking what other moment or circumstance you’d rather be in. And the moment you do that, you’re right back in “In Order To” mode.

I mean this moment. The one you’re actually in. The job that sucks. How would you show up differently today if you brought the same energy you’d have after quitting?

So instead I ask: how does my heart want to engage this moment?

When I do, I stop feeling like I need to fight life or worry about it so much. And when I’m not doing that, ironically, I meet what’s in front of me a whole lot better.

Doing so has allowed me to savor and experience more fully what unfolds. And as cheesy as it may sound, there’s nothing I enjoy more than fully connecting to my heart and honoring the truth it’s signaling.

Paradoxically, that’s when I feel enough.

About the Author

Hey there! I’m Dave, the heart and inspiration behind Day-to-Day 2.0. I’m an entrepreneur and father living abroad in Transylvania who spent a decade obsessed with answering one question: why does the path to getting ahead keep putting us at odds with ourselves? By day, I’m co-founder of Origin Wellness Center, exec coach, and a TEDx speaker. Here, I write about becoming more alive and aligned today — not someday. I open up about the mess of being a father, husband, and entrepreneur all at once. And I sit down with entrepreneurs over coffee and cozonac to hear the stories and lessons we don’t normally get to hear.