The offer letter came. You said yes. And something in you went quiet.

I remember watching my reflection in the subway window as I traveled from Brooklyn to Manhattan every morning for months. I had the role I'd chased. The city I'd dreamed about. The résumé that finally looked right.

But the person staring back at me looked tired in a way sleep couldn't fix.

Not because I wasn't capable. Not because I didn’t have ambition. But because I'd been so focused on arriving that I forgot to ask if it was actually a good fit for me.

That knot in your stomach that shows up when you think about Monday? It's not burnout. It's not ingratitude.

It's misalignment wearing ambition's mask.

I wish I'd asked myself these questions sooner:

• Am I energized by this work, or just disciplined enough to push through?

• Do I enjoy the work, or do I enjoy having done it?

• Does this work truly matter to me, or does it just look good?

If you're answering "no" more than "yes," nothing is wrong with you. You're not broken. You're not ungrateful.

You're just running a race you never agreed to enter, or one that's no longer right for you.

Ambition isn't the problem. Blind ambition on autopilot is. The kind that mistakes external validation for internal alignment. The kind that gets you to the finish line but leaves you feeling hollow.

What would you chase if no one else was watching?