Last week, I reflected on social hierarchies — how they’re not just relics of ancient times; but living, breathing organisms that still define so much of modern life. This week, we zoom in tighter. We’re not just talking about hierarchies. We’re talking about what happens when you dare to climb them — and the emotional trench warfare that kicks off the moment you try.
Welcome to the lonely chapter: the painful purgatory of in-between-ism.
Here’s the brutal truth:
Trying to level up isn’t just hard because of the work it takes. It’s hard because people will actively resist you doing it.
Those at your level? They see your ambition like it’s a mirror shoved in their face.
Those above you? They see your ambition as a threat to their throne.
Even yourself? You’ll wrestle with the siren call of your old identity, whispering, “Come back… It’s easier here…”
It’s Tall Poppy Syndrome meets Existential Growing Pains.
Your old self must die for the new one to live.
(And man, nobody really warns you how much that’s going to sting.)
As Gandhi put it best:
“First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.”
Everyone loves the last part. Nobody talks about how soul-crushing the middle part feels.
You’ve outgrown the old conversations, the old habits, the old places — but you haven’t earned your citizenship in the new world yet. You’re a nomad in your own life.
And this is where most people turn back.
Not because they’re weak, but because being in-between feels worse than being stuck at the bottom. You now no longer belong to either cohort.
The comfort of the known becomes magnetic.
Friends, family, even your own inner voice will try to drag you backwards:
“You’ve changed.”
“You’re being arrogant.”
“Who do you think you are?”
But the truth is harsher and simpler:
You have changed. You are different.
And going back would mean amputating the part of yourself that’s grown.
Progress demands sacrifice — sacrifice of who you were yesterday, in service of who you could be tomorrow.
The lonely chapter is the tax you pay for transformation.
This isn’t a dig at old friends, memories, or relationships. It’s the whisper of sacrifice — the death of who you were for the birth of who you want to be.
It’s not about abandoning everything that makes you ‘you’. It’s about carving deeper into yourself to find who you really are.
The cliché isn’t lost on me. But clichés exist for a reason: they hold truths so sharp we must soften them with overuse just to bear them.
The urge to regress — to slip back into the sweet embrace of comfort — is the temptation of the serpent in the garden. Its whispers sound like this:
“The road ahead is too hard. It’s unknown. You could be risking it all for nothing. Stay here. Stay safe. Stay comfortable.”
But you know better. Comfort never offers opportunity.
The velvet prison is real — and worse, it’s enforced by those around you, often unconsciously.
The serpent whispers in their ears too.
That call to ambition. The call to the unknown. The call is a journey.
It’s the hero’s journey.
