I have been told, more than once, that I am a natural asshole.

Not maliciously — at least not always. More in the way someone says it when they mean you are direct. Blunt. That social graces do not come naturally to you the way they seem to come naturally to everyone else in the room. That you say the thing. That you don’t cushion it first.

I spent a long time trying to figure out what to do with that. You can only intend to be okay with it so much as a kid? When really you are sitting there in the corner of the room alone wondering what went wrong that you turned out so different. Did you watch too much Star Trek with your grandpa?

On Maslow and the Gap

You’ve probably seen Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The pyramid. Physiological needs at the base — food, sleep, safety. Then belonging. Then esteem. And at the top, the peak that most of us spend our whole lives pointing at without ever quite reaching it: self-actualization. Fulfillment. Becoming the fullest version of yourself.

What I’ve noticed is that most of us never get there. Not because we aren’t trying. Because we spend so much time managing the lower levels — surviving, proving ourselves, looking for belonging in places that don’t quite fit — that we never get to ask the question that actually matters. Not what do I want to do. But who do I actually want to be.

The Romulan Phase

For a long time I thought I had the answer. I was going to be a humanitarian lawyer. The asshole in someone else’s corner when they needed one. A Romulan — if you’ll allow me this — operating in the shadows for good. Sneaky. Strategic. Willing to do the complicated moral math that other people preferred not to think about.

I liked that version of myself. She was competent and sharp and she knew exactly what she was for.
And then I realized I didn’t actually want to be a lawyer. And that version of myself collapsed.

The Klingon Phase

After that came what I can only describe as my Klingon phase. If I couldn’t be the strategic long-game player maybe I could just be the warrior. Live short but gloriously. Enter the halls of Valhalla. Fulfill a childhood dream of burning bright enough that it didn’t matter how long it lasted.

I understand now that this wasn’t ambition. It was bargaining with grief. It was what happens when you lose the story you were telling yourself about who you were going to be and you reach for the most dramatic alternative available.

It wasn’t self-actualization. It was the opposite. It was a performance of purpose designed to avoid the question underneath it.

The Science of Wellbeing

The thing that changed everything was a Coursera class. The Science of Wellbeing by a Yale professor named Laurie Santos. I took it on a slow afternoon with no particular expectations and because it reminded me of a silly off comment I once made about wanting to be buried under Yale library. And it quietly rearranged something in me.

What the research actually shows — not what we’re sold, not what looks good on a vision board — is that purpose and fulfillment don’t come from money or status or achieving the specific job title you had in mind at twenty-two. They come from something more interior and more relational than that.

I started asking different questions. Not what do I want to accomplish. But how do I want to move through the world. What kind of presence do I want to be for other people. What community do I want to build and belong to.

And answering those questions — actually sitting with them instead of reaching past them toward the next achievement — led me somewhere I didn’t expect.

The Healer

It led me to healthcare. Not the frontline fighter. Not the strategist in the shadows. Not the warrior going down in flames. The healer. The backline support. The one in the RPG party who doesn’t always get the glory but is quietly the reason everyone else is still standing.

I am the member of the party keeping these fuckers alive.

And I had to sit with that for a while. Because there is a voice — and maybe you know this voice — that says support is lesser. That if you’re not the one at the front taking the hits you are somehow less essential. Less important. Less.

That voice is wrong.

Women have been showing up as quiet strength for decades. The backbone. The hand on someone else’s back in the moment when they need it most. The person who notices what everyone else is too busy to see. That is not a supporting role. That is the role that makes everything else possible.

Gentle Strength

I am still, for the record, an asshole.

I am still blunt. I still say the thing. Social graces are still a conscious effort rather than a natural instinct.
But I have found what to do with it. I am the asshole who shows up for you. The one in your corner when you need someone who will tell you the truth and stay anyway. The one who will do the complicated moral math and hand you the answer without making you feel small for needing it.

That is my gentle strength. Not the absence of edges. The decision about where to put them.

And getting here — to this answer, to this version of the question — required losing the stories I had about myself first. The Romulan. The Klingon. The lawyer. The warrior.

What was left underneath all of them was the healer. She was there the whole time.

I just had to stop performing long enough to meet her.

— Lauren 🖖🏻

Lauren Grace Zemel Writer · Model · Radiologic Technology Student · Wellness Explorer

South Florida based creative building a life at the intersection of science, storytelling, and community. Gentle Strength is my home base.

📸 @laurengracezemel 🌿 laurengracezemel.com