“Enjoy every minute.” “The days are long but the years are short.” “Babies don’t keep.”

These words, meant to encourage presence, can become a kind of pressure. They plant a seed of doubt. Am I enjoying this enough? Am I soaking it in correctly? Did I capture the right memory?The joy of the moment becomes secondary to the fear of not honoring it properly. You are suddenly an archivist of your own life, frantically trying to bottle the light before it fades.

Remember MTV's Made, where a shy teen was turned into a prom queen? Or The Biggest Loser, where dropping 100 pounds meant not just a new body, but a new life, a new identity? Don't even get me started on America's Next Top Model where the approval of a harsh judge about whether you won or lost the genetic lottery was akin to winning the Pulitzer. The story was always the same: your current self, messy and imperfect, is just a "before" shot. The "after" is where the real living happens. It’s where the guy who ignored you suddenly notices you, where a job promotion falls into your lap, and where your entire life is finally validated. They might as well have called those shows, “Take notes on how to not suck, loser.” This wasn't just entertainment; it was a cultural script. And a lot of us are still reading from it.