I'm Old Enough to Buy Eggs (Stop Shrinking Yourself to Fit In) - EP 311

Every Halloween growing up, my dad didn't just take us trick or treating. He dressed up too, in full costumes he hand sewed himself. And this grown man would walk right up to the door next to us and say trick or treat. People would look him up and down and go aren't you a little old for this? And every time he'd look them dead in the eye and say well, I'm also old enough to buy eggs now. Give me the candy or I'll be back later.

I thought he was just being goofy. It took me years to see what I was really watching. A man being completely, unapologetically himself in a world that kept telling him he was too old, too big, too much. And he did not care even a little.

This episode is about that voice in your head, the one that shows up the second you want to say the thing, build the thing, become the thing and whispers act your age, that's not professional, what will people think. That voice is not you. It's a committee. Every teacher who told you to sit down, every boss who wanted you smaller, every person who was more comfortable when you were a watered down version of yourself. You've listened to it so long you think it's your own voice. It's not.

Most people spend their whole lives being who they think they're supposed to be. They pick the safe major, the respectable job, they sand off every edge that makes them interesting until they're smooth and forgettable and then one day they're fifty wondering why their life feels like it belongs to someone else. I'm a doctor who refused to be what a doctor is supposed to be and here's what I've learned. The loudest voice telling you to shrink usually comes from someone who already shrunk themselves, and it kills them a little to watch you refuse to do the same.

That thing you keep talking yourself out of is usually the most valuable thing you've got because it's the one thing nobody can copy. Anyone can be the acceptable version. There are ten thousand of those. There's exactly one of you being you. You're going to get old either way. The only question is whether you spend those years being yourself or being a costume the committee approved.

CHAPTERS

00:00 My dad went trick or treating in full costume

01:15 I'm old enough to buy eggs

01:56 What I was actually watching all those years

02:20 The voice in your head is a committee, not you

03:16 How people shrink until their life isn't theirs

03:51 The doctor who refused to stay in the lane