The goal was achieved. The feeling lasted 10 seconds.

I was lying on my bed when the notification appeared on my lock screen. It was the official TSE email address. I had been waiting for it for days.

It was April 2020. My hands started sweating as I opened my laptop. The second before I clicked, I swallowed hard. Then I read it.

I had been accepted to finish my bachelor’s degree at TSE, the best school of Economics in France.

A sudden wave of peace and relief filled my body. There was no fear, no stress, no tension. I lay back on my bed and felt the endorphins taking over. It was a level of satisfaction I had never experienced before in my life. I called my mother immediately. When she heard the news, she started crying: "What wonderful news, son. After so much sacrifice, you did it. You are the pride of this family."

The feeling lasted about 10 seconds.

Then came the rebound.

I. What it cost to get there

Those two years in Toulouse were my biggest bet at the time.

I consistently chose studying over going out with friends, over weekend trips to nearby cities, over spontaneous dinners and long walks with no particular destination. Even visiting family in Italy and Spain was postponed. At that time, there was no choice.

I organized my entire life around this goal. I even mentally rehearsed how the moment would feel, how I would act, who I would call. These emotionally charged images played on a loop in my mind for almost two years.

And when the goal was finally achieved, when the email finally appeared on the lock screen, I discovered something I had not anticipated: this goal had been covering gaps in my inner life. Things I had been hiding, avoiding, and not expressing. When the goal was gone, what was underneath finally had room to surface.

II. The shadow

During that time, the French government ordered national lockdowns due to COVID-19.

There was nowhere to go. Seeing my family (international flights had been banned) or friends was not possible. I suddenly had more time alone in my room, dealing with my thoughts, and the absence of the pressure that had kept me “functional” for two years.

I remember one specific day during the first wave of lockdowns. I spent the entire day on my phone scrolling non-stop, moving from one app to another, doing anything I could to stay away from myself. That day, I neglected even my most basic routines. I did not go outside even for five minutes of sun.

At the end, I understood something: I had not only been building toward something for two years. I had also been running from something.

The insecurities, the repressed feelings, the long-term scars I had been too busy to examine, they did not disappear because I had a goal. Everything I had swept under the carpet was still there. So, when the lockdown removed every available distraction, they stopped waiting.

The next months were the hardest of my life. My only (and mature) option was to look inward. Unfortunately, I was not ready for what I found. I tried to face it and could not. Some weeks later, when the lockdown lifted, I did what I had done for two years: I escaped. Parties, social gatherings, anything to keep the truth out of sight.

The old habit had simply changed form.

III. The first honest conversation

I started therapy that autumn.

After two or three sessions, my therapist said something I still think about: "Juan, you have a lot to say. I wonder why it has been so hard for you to express yourself in the past. That is what we are going to work on."

Until that moment, I had not considered that what I felt and thought was valuable or worth examining. I had spent years listening to a very harsh and critical inner voice. Her observation was the first time I genuinely considered the possibility of being my own friend.

I decided that the following academic year would be different. I needed real independence (physical, emotional, mental, and financial). I needed to stop running from myself. I wrote every detail of my plan down. I started changing small habits one at a time: running two or three times a week, meditating for five minutes, eating better. My new long-term goal was creating personal systems to build self-confidence through love and compassion. I wanted to save myself first to help others to do so in the future too.

After a few months, I concluded that experimentation was key during this period. I needed to explore beyond what I knew to keep going, to be open to trying new things and failing. In those months I was building up the courage to make more drastic decisions. Finally, I chose Madrid as the destination of my Erasmus exchange program after finishing my bachelor’s degree at TSE.

IV. Madrid, and the moment I knew something had changed

A year later, I went to Morocco with friends I had met at university in Madrid.

We spent a night in a camp in the Sahara. We danced at a party in the desert. The next morning, some local friends offered us something completely unplanned: free paragliding from a (really high) mountain nearby.

The version of me who had arrived in France two years earlier would have said no immediately. It would have seemed too risky, too unpredictable, too far outside any plan.

This version said yes.

Standing on that mountain before jumping, I felt something I could not quite describe: a recognition that I was no longer running from anything, I was consciously choosing to move toward things that felt frightening or risky (whether the risks were real or perceived).

When I landed, I remember thinking: I do not recognize myself. I like it.

V. What I want you to take from this

I write this for anyone with an ambitious goal and a difficult present. For anyone who has achieved something hard and is still recovering before taking the next step forward. For anyone in a dark period who cannot yet see the connection between what they are going through and who they are becoming.

The relationship between what you achieve and what you feel is not always what you expect. Goals are very important in life. However, if the goal is not consciously chosen from a healthy relationship with yourself and others, the risk is that you are covering up something that will eventually demand to be seen (your body keeps track).

If you are running from yourself too, I urge you to face reality as it is, no matter how difficult, uncomfortable or scary it may be perceived. Remember to ask for help from loved ones. I cannot promise that it will be easy, but you do not have to face it alone. I have been there. And I would do it all over again.

What would you tell the version of yourself that was in the middle of the hardest period, before knowing it would end?