I Am Not Reformed

There’s a story everyone expects. The man makes mistakes, falls hard, recognizes the truth, gets back up and becomes a better person. The hero’s journey. The arc. The redemption.

That’s not my story.

I’m not reformed. I’m more awake. And that’s less than it sounds.

More awake doesn’t mean wise. It means I spot faster when something is off. It means I react earlier to signs I would have ignored before. It doesn’t mean I don’t make mistakes anymore. It means the mistakes are different ones.

People want a transformation. They want the moment when everything becomes clear. The morning after, when you wake up and see the world with new eyes. The dividing line between the old self and the new self. That’s not how it works.

What actually happened: I sorted things out. Family, balance sheet, wreckage. That doesn’t sound inspiring, because it isn’t inspiring. It’s work. It’s cleaning up without anyone watching. Settling contracts. Making phone calls you don’t want to make. Entering amounts into spreadsheets that hurt. Admitting you messed up things for which there is no elegant explanation.

First distance. Then reflection. But reflection without sugarcoating is not a pleasant process. You look at things and you don’t think: ah, now I understand. You think: that was me. Exactly like that. And there was no reason I hadn’t supplied myself.

Maybe I sold placebo. Marketed belief. Served hope. At some point I suspected what I was doing. And I kept going. There’s no absolution for that. Not from me, not from the customers, not from history.

Some people expect the lesson at the end. The golden sentence that ties everything together. The moral that justifies the pain. I can’t deliver that. Not because I’m modest, but because I don’t have it. There is no lesson that outweighs the loss. There is no knowledge that pays back the debts. There is no sentence that makes it all worthwhile.

What there is: attention. A sharper eye. Faster reaction to bullshit. Not zero, but more than before.

I’m not the broken entrepreneur who comes back and now explains to everyone how to do it right. I’m someone who went through something and talks about it because that’s more honest than staying silent. Not because it helps me. Because maybe it helps someone who’s caught in the same loop right now.

No self-pity story. No victim role. But no redemption either.

There’s this reflex to pack everything into an arc. I used to be like this, then that happened, now I’m different. And yes, of course something changed. But the change isn’t the punchline. It’s not a triumph. It’s just there. Quiet, undramatic, and most days not even noticeable.

Experience doesn’t automatically make you wise. It makes you more attentive. That’s all. And on many days that’s enough. On some it’s not.

I’m not writing this to prove anything. Not to show that I’ve transformed. Not to show that I’ve learned. I’m writing it because the alternative would be to pretend there’s a happy ending. And that would be the next lie in a long line. This time to myself.

I’m not reformed. I’m more awake. And I trust my own judgment less than I used to. That sounds like weakness. I consider it one of the few real advances.