So you've reached greatness. What now?
Winning the Super Bowl is one of the most esteemed accomplishments in American culture. Waves of confetti rain down on the winning team as tens of thousands of loyal football fans roar with passion. Years of training, injuries, blood, sweat, tears, and devotion lead to a single moment of glory.
And yet, quarterbacks are inevitably interrupted from their grand celebration by a reporter pulling them aside for a post-game interview. Year after year, the same nagging question gets asked.
“So, what's next?”
This has always inexplicably irked me, and it reflects a wider social pattern.
Why can we never sit with our success?
At my high school graduation, I tossed my cap into the air, thanked my family for coming, and took a couple of group photos with classmates I would likely never see again. Ten minutes later, we were hurried out of the auditorium and shoved onto a bus for an all-night afterparty. Summer began, and before I knew it, I parted ways with the school I spent twelve years of my life at.
Even though I’m now a junior in college, I still think about that day sometimes. When it’s 3 a.m., and I start questioning my life choices, I regret not lingering in that moment. Not squeezing my grandmother tighter or expressing excessive gratitude to my parents for their continuous support of my education. Not confessing to my English teacher that she was always my favorite or telling the people I have known since we were five how big of an impact they had on me.
Instead, I moved on too quickly and burst out of the only bubble I had ever known before I had the chance to appreciate it.
People say it's embarrassing to be stuck in the past. But growing up shouldn’t automatically mean moving on. Although I welcome personal growth, I worry that the constant rush forward stops me from fully understanding who I was at that moment in time. I am merely a mosaic of my memories, and if I stop myself from reminiscing, then what is left of me? The constant expectation of moving on to bigger and better things glosses over the importance of reflection and introspection.
Additionally, if each achievement is not far greater than the last, it is seen as a failure. Our persistence in upping the ante has slowly killed what makes success so sweet in the first place, and the need for escalation has crept into every art form.
The final season of Stranger Things was met with outrage from heartbroken fans. They weren’t just upset because the series concluded, but also because the finale was deeply disappointing. Despite a budget of nearly $500 million, fans felt that the writing fell flat, characters felt empty, and the heavy CGI took away the original charm. A later behind-the-scenes documentary revealed that the ending was not fully written before filming began, which bothered not only the show’s viewers but also many of the cast and crew. In the Duffer Brothers' attempt at raising the stakes, they lost sight of what initially won fans over, and despite its low budget, the show’s first season remains the highest rated of the five.
Although this is just one example in pop culture, it serves as a reminder that bigger does not always mean better. The mindset of needing to constantly one-up yourself leads to burnout, not fulfillment. Art takes time. Success takes time. Even while you are looking ahead, you should still be able to look in the rearview mirror from time to time and congratulate yourself on how far you’ve come.
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