Back in my second year of university, I jumped straight into job hunting.

I wanted real experience. Something beyond the fake projects we did at school. I wanted to touch actual problems, make things that reached people, maybe changed something.

Part of me also just envied the fourth-year design students. They had internships, jobs, side gigs. I was restless, watching them move. That envy pushed me early into UI/UX. First year, I was already taking courses online.

Because inside me one question was always screaming: What kind of designer am I going to be?

I remember one moment clearly. First year, second semester. Drawing class, taught by a young professor who'd just come back from her master's abroad. I asked her how she chose her path.

I was the kind of person who could lose his mind searching for a calling. The classroom, the sketch on the screen, the sound of pencil on paper. Her answer was vague, almost a joke. But the question burned in me. I needed a direction.

The whole field felt massive and I had no idea which corner of it could be mine.

That envy became fuel. It made me feel like I had to catch up or fall behind. UI/UX was the wave everyone was riding and I let it carry me.

I enjoyed it. But I also felt swept away.

It wasn't just about school. There were other pressures. My uncle had married and had a child at 23. Already done with military service. My father was 60, still working to support me. I was in my twenties, still studying, still a cost. That stung. I didn't want to be a burden. I didn't want money to be a worry because of me.

So I sprinted.

Car design sketches. Endless sheets filled with lines and forms. Poster design. I named my poster folder "experimental." Because that's what I was: an experimentalist. Free, unafraid, exploring. No one handed me a predefined path, so I drew my own.

Some of those posters were actually good. I became the designer for the university's American football team, designed event posters, ran their social media, turned it into one of the most-followed community accounts on campus.

That period was pure flow. Creativity was alive because no one had assigned it a rubric.

But alongside that excitement, a spiral.

"What kind of designer will I be?" wasn't just a professional question. It was identity. I obsessed over it. University made it worse, not better. Rigid projects, predefined milestones, rubrics for everything. You weren't asked to solve problems; you were asked to follow instructions. When you enter a system like that, you learn to walk paths already laid down. You lose the nerve to build your own.

Every time I strayed from my instincts, I felt the light dim.

I've felt my light go out twice.

The first was entering university. In high school I was an outlier. Too different for a small city. Too raw to fit the social template. That difference made me free. I didn't care much about rules or how things were supposed to be done.

When I got to university, I sanded down my edges. I wanted to fit in. I adapted. And in doing so, I left something behind. The kid who didn't ask for permission. He got quiet.

The second time was more recent.

This past year I've had an almost ideal life on paper: studying abroad, earning money, good apartment, a partner, some savings, stability. And I felt almost nothing.

Stability is a drug. Comfort doesn't hurt you. It sedates you. You don't feel it pulling the urgency out. Slowly, the calling gets quieter. And one day you look for it and it's not where you left it.

The cost of losing your light isn't time. It's confidence. It's the capacity to take risks.

The longer you go without it, the harder reclaiming it becomes. Like a muscle that's been resting too long, you forget it's there. And enough people stay in that state long enough that they stop believing it ever existed.

That's how stable, mediocre, safe lives get built. Not through one bad decision. Through years of small sedations.

The good news is it doesn't actually die. It just goes quiet.

For me, the return required a few things. Empty hours where no one was asking anything of me. Play without a goal. Small bets on things I might fail at. Saying no to busyness dressed up as progress. And mostly, listening to the kid who never waited for permission.

Not glamorous. But that's what it actually takes.

Here's what I'd ask you.

Where were you the last time you felt something you couldn't ignore? Not something you were supposed to feel. Something real.

What would it take to go back there?

Before the ladder. Before the noise. Before you got reasonable.

The return starts when you ask honestly.