Why You Will Never "Arrive" (And Why That's Okay)

By Paulina Adams

Edited by Taylor Morgan

PAULINA ADAMS / UP Fashion Co-Director

The wellness industry is a multi-billion-dollar machine, and to be fair, it isn’t all bad. Movement can be healing. Rituals can be grounding. Learning how to care for yourself matters.

But alongside all of that, it’s selling one powerful idea: a finish line.

Once you try this workout, then you will finally look like that.

Once you use this product, then you will look younger.

Once you achieve your dream body, then you will be happy.

Except the moment you get close, the rules change—the beauty standard shifts. The “ideal” evolves. Or you realize that maintaining the thing you worked so hard for is its own full-time job. 

And yes—I love wellness. I buy the products. I try the routines. I fall for the marketing. So if this sounds a little hypocritical, that’s because it is. Most of us are participating while also feeling vaguely exhausted by it.

The message is subtle but persistent: you are not enough yet, but you could be, if you just try this one thing.

What we forget is that there will always be a next thing.

You never truly arrive, because there is always somewhere else you are told you should be. A new goal. A new insecurity. A new promise packaged as progress. The problem isn’t growth—it’s that you are taught you are only worthy once you reach some imaginary endpoint.

The truth is uncomfortable but freeing: there is no arrival.

And once you stop expecting one, everything changes.

Becoming is the point. The process is the point. Real wellness lives in the day-to-day choices and small adjustments, not in before-and-after photos.

Stepping out of scarcity means thinking in terms of sustainable success. What supports you long-term? What feels nourishing instead of punishing? What can you carry through different seasons of your life?

That means being intentional about how you move, rather than following whatever workout is trending. It might mean prioritizing rest, boundaries or consistency over intensity. And it definitely means learning to trust your own experience instead of outsourcing your self-worth to whatever a company is selling this month.

Investing in the highest version of yourself doesn’t mean endless upgrades. It means building a relationship with yourself that isn’t based on lack. One rooted in curiosity instead of criticism. One that doesn’t require you to be “fixed” to be deserving.

Years slip away as you chase the idea of enough.

You are not behind. You are not broken. You were never meant to arrive.

There was never a finish line to begin with—and that’s not a flaw. 

That’s freedom.