
Close the door and burn it. You know what’s behind it. There’s no question. Everything else may or may not lead you to happiness, but not this. You know it sucks. Leave the other doors open until you peek through, but not the one you know is wrong. Knowledge of what you dislike is profoundly valuable, but only if you act on it. Inaction — not doing those things — is often not enough. You need to prevent yourself from ever doing them.
There’s something weird about staying in your hometown. It severely limits the definitions you accept for what makes you successful. Oddly, most of the hometown definitions of success have nothing to do with happiness. They have to do with becoming what everyone in your past expects or desires given who you used to be. It’s a sort of tether to a past self that no longer exists.