The Most Dangerous Decision I Ever Made Didn't Feel Like A Decision

Back in 2007, I believe, is when I graduated high school.

That was 19 years ago.

I remember I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do after high school.

I never really gave it much thought.

A friend at the time was talking about how great it would be to become a chef.

He liked to cook and was thinking of going to chef school or something.

He was so convincing, that I wanted to do it too.

I mean, I didn’t think of what I wanted to do or be, and my friend was doing it, so I thought I’d do it too.

At the time, it felt like I was making my own decision.

In our last year of high school, we are given a choice to pick classes for one of the semesters...

...or go to co-op.

The best way I can describe co-op is: you’re placed in a workplace to learn how to do the job and instead of getting paid money (which you totally can if the place was cool enough), you get paid in high school credits.

And after, when your semester is up, the business can decide to hire you to work there.

Anyway, I took co-op, and was placed in a retirement home kitchen.

I learned a lot and owe knowing how to cook from that time I was in that kitchen.

After we graduated -- because I decided to take co-op during the second half of the school year, I graduated right after.

And after graduating, I was hired to work there by the head chef.

I took a year off after high school to work.

After the year off, I enrolled myself into chef school at George Brown College.

Working at the retirement home kitchen made me seriously consider a career as a chef.

To move up the ranks from Sous Chef to Head Chef.

The more time I spent there, the more normal that future started to feel.

I remember I was at a family member’s wedding, and a bunch of the uncles I haven’t seen in a while kept asking me what plans I had for after school.

I kept telling everyone that I was going to open up my own restaurant.

I really thought I was going to do that.

Looking back, I’m not sure how much of that dream was actually mine.

Then things started to slip away...

While I worked at the retirement home for a couple years and went to chef school...

Things started to slip away from me.

I failed my semester at chef school because I was a cocky kid who wasn’t taking the class seriously.

And I think that cocky attitude dragged itself with me to work, because one morning I was supposed to open for the chef.

I was supposed to be there for like 5am or something...

But I slept in.

And he was pissed.

He was so pissed, he told me not to come back.

So I didn’t.

Over the years, I worked many other jobs, mostly restaurant jobs.

I worked at a place called Marche for a few years on and off -- first at the Seafood Station, then at the Pizza Station.

And slowly but surely, I ended up leaving.

There came a point where I was lost in life.

All my friends at the time were having kids, moving in together, had steady jobs...

I felt like I was behind in life and couldn’t catch up.

It felt like everyone else had received some kind of roadmap that I missed.

But as the years passed, I realized something...

That path was never meant for me.

At least, not in the way I originally thought.

Sure, the cooking skills came REALLY in handy, especially for when I first met my now wife, I cooked her a few meals to try to impress her.

(It worked 😉)

But as I was contemplating life, as I did...

I was... I guess justifying to myself all the failures when it came to my career as a cook?

But the realization came to me: this path was never my path I wanted for myself.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking myself what I wanted and started following what was already in front of me.

Now that I really thought about it, in the kitchen world, Sous Chefs become Head Chefs after like 30 years or something...

I wasn’t going to be a Head Chef until I was almost 50!

I actually didn’t know what I wanted for myself.

I actually got convinced by my then friend that that is what I wanted to do.

Once I realized that... I felt more lost in life than ever.

Because if that wasn’t my direction, then I had no idea where the direction had come from in the first place.

For years, I thought the chef thing failed because I made bad decisions.

Maybe I wasn’t disciplined enough.

Maybe I wasn’t mature enough.

Maybe I didn’t take school seriously enough.

And to be fair...

Those things definitely didn’t help.

But looking back, I don’t think that’s the most interesting part of what happened.

The more interesting question is:

Why did I end up on that path in the first place?

Because when I really thought about it...

I never consciously chose it.

And I don’t think I’m alone in that.

Most people assume their goals belong to them.

But goals don’t magically appear out of nowhere.

We absorb them.

From parents.

Friends.

Teachers.

Culture.

The internet.

The people we spend the most time around.

It’s kinda like when my friend started talking about becoming a chef.

He was excited about it.

Passionate about it.

Convinced it was what he wanted.

Then somehow...

I wanted it too.

Not because someone forced me.

Not because someone manipulated me.

Because humans naturally absorb what the people around them value.

People gradually adopt external values and goals through repeated exposure and social influence.

A borrowed goal can feel just as compelling as a self-generated goal.

People often mistake inherited ambitions for authentic desires.

Feeling strongly about something doesn’t automatically mean it originated from you.

And that’s what makes this difficult to notice.

Because the goal feels real.

The excitement feels real.

The commitment feels real.

The goal may still not be yours.

One of the biggest differences between a borrowed goal and a chosen goal is what happens over time.

Borrowed goals often rely on momentum.

Chosen goals create energy.

At first they can look identical.

Years later they don’t.

It’s kinda like standing at that wedding telling everyone I was going to open a restaurant.

I believed it.

I wasn’t lying.

If you asked me back then what I wanted, that would’ve been my answer.

But years later, when I started questioning the path, something felt off.

Not because I suddenly hated cooking.

Because I realized I never asked myself whether that future actually aligned with what I wanted from life.

People experience greater motivation when goals feel self-endorsed rather than inherited.

Externally adopted goals become increasingly difficult to sustain over long periods.

Misalignment often gets mistaken for laziness, lack of discipline, or lack of motivation.

Sometimes the problem isn’t execution.

Sometimes it’s ownership.

Which creates a very uncomfortable possibility.

What if people aren’t struggling because they can’t stay committed?

What if they’re struggling because they’re trying to stay committed to a future they never consciously chose?

This is where things started clicking for me.

I used to think my environment was just background.

The kitchen was background.

The job was background.

Chef school was background.

The people around me were background.

But none of it was background.

It was training.

It’s kinda like working in the retirement home kitchen.

Then getting hired.

Then going to chef school.

Then imagining becoming a Sous Chef.

Then imagining becoming a Head Chef.

The more time I spent around that future...

The more normal it felt.

The more obvious it felt.

The more it felt like mine.

Repeated exposure trains the brain to normalize certain behaviors, ambitions, and futures.

People move toward what feels familiar long before they consciously evaluate it.

Environments don’t just shape behavior.

They shape preference.

Familiarity is not evidence of alignment.

And that’s the realization that changed everything for me.

Because it forced me to confront something I had never considered before.

Identity is continuously shaped by repeated environmental reinforcement.

People gradually become what their environment repeatedly rewards and normalizes.

Many identities are assembled through adaptation rather than conscious design.

Identity is not only discovered.

It is trained.

And that’s the reframe that sits underneath this entire experience.

Most people think their environment surrounds their identity.

But it doesn’t.

It trains it.

Which means most people are not consciously becoming themselves.

They’re adapting into whoever their environment repeatedly rewards.

The chef path just happened to be the first time I noticed it.

Once you see it, you start noticing it everywhere.

In careers.

In relationships.

In social circles.

In online spaces.

In the content you consume.

In the future you imagine for yourself.

The question stops being:

“Who am I?”

And becomes:

“Who is my environment training me to become?”

Then look at what your environment rewards.

Some environments reward urgency.

Some reward comparison.

Some reward performance.

Some reward consumption.

Some reward creating before consuming.

Some reward thinking clearly.

Some reward being constantly available and mentally scattered.

This matters because humans adapt to reward.

Kinda like how the kitchen environment made the chef path feel more legitimate the longer I stayed inside it.

The job.

The school.

The title progression.

Sous Chef.

Head Chef.

Restaurant owner.

Each part reinforced the same identity.

So ask:

What behavior does my current environment make easier?

What behavior does it make harder?

What do I keep getting pulled toward without deciding?

That question alone can explain a lot.

Then look at what’s easy.

Because the easiest behavior usually wins.

If opening your phone is easier than opening your draft...

you’ll probably open your phone.

If consuming is easier than creating...

you’ll probably consume.

If reacting is easier than reflecting...

you’ll probably react.

Fuckin’ duh, right?

But most people keep trying to overpower friction with motivation.

The environment keeps pulling one way, and they keep blaming themselves for not walking the other.

So make the aligned behavior easier.

Put the draft where the feed used to be.

Make the writing app easier to reach than the scrolling app.

Make your workspace remind you to build, not browse.

Make the future-self behavior visible.

Not because you’re weak.

Because your environment is already doing this to you anyway.

You might as well make it work in your favor.

Then ask what your repeated behavior is proving to you.

Because identity doesn’t change through affirmations.

It changes through evidence.

If every morning starts with consumption, your brain gets evidence:

“I am reactive.”

If every day ends with avoidance, your brain gets evidence:

“I don’t follow through.”

If you publish, build, write, think, reflect, or create before the noise gets in…

your brain gets different evidence.

Kinda like when I realized cooking skills stayed with me even after the chef identity didn’t.

That environment still trained something useful.

It just wasn’t the life direction I thought it was training.

So the point isn’t to reject every environment that shaped you.

The point is to consciously decide what you want repeated exposure to keep reinforcing.

This is where the relief comes in.

You don’t need to perfectly know who you are before you start changing your environment.

Sometimes changing the environment is how you start hearing yourself again.

Less noise.

Less imitation.

Less accidental reinforcement.

More space.

More creation.

More chosen inputs.

More proof that you can direct your own behavior.

That’s the shift.

Not:

“How do I force myself to become someone else?”

But:

“What environment would make my chosen identity easier to practice?”

Because becoming yourself is not only an internal search.

It’s also an external design problem.

And the environments you tolerate today become the identity you normalize tomorrow.

At some point, this becomes a choice.

Not a dramatic one.

Not the kind where your whole life changes overnight.

More like the quiet choice underneath everything else:

Do I keep letting my environment decide what feels normal?

Or do I start deciding what environment gets to shape me?

Because the old path is easy to miss.

It looks reasonable.

You follow what your friends are doing.

You take the opportunity in front of you.

You stay in the room you already understand.

You keep consuming the same inputs.

You keep reinforcing the same identity.

And because nothing looks obviously wrong, you assume nothing is happening.

But something is happening.

Every day spent in an accidental environment trains an accidental future self.

That’s the cost.

Not one bad decision.

Not one wasted year.

Not one failed semester.

The cost is becoming someone through repetition, then mistaking that person for who you were always meant to be.

The other path is less comfortable at first.

Because it asks you to stop outsourcing your direction.

It asks you to look at your inputs, your rooms, your routines, your feeds, your conversations, your defaults…

…and ask what they’re training.

Not what they promise.

Not what they entertain.

Not what they make easy.

What they’re training.

That’s the choice.

You can keep adapting quietly.

Or you can start shaping the conditions that shape you.

So here’s the one ask:

Pick one environment in your life this week and ask:

What future version of me does this keep reinforcing?

Because your environment is never neutral.

It is either helping you become more intentional…

…or helping you become more automatic.