There are days when everything feels like too muchβand yet, somehow, not enough.
It happened to me on a Tuesday. Not a dramatic day. Not a day marked by grief or chaos. Just a regular Tuesday. I was going through the motionsβreplying to emails, checking off tasks, smiling politely, drinking my tea. The world spun just as it always does.
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But then, somewhere between the noise and the silence, my heart whispered: βWhatβs the point of all this?β
And suddenly, it hit meβeverything around felt empty. The goals, the accomplishments, the endless strivingβ¦ all felt like sandcastles built on the edge of a restless ocean. One wave, and itβs all gone. One breath, and itβs all forgotten.
Have you ever stood in the middle of a crowded room and felt utterly alone?
People laugh, talk, share storiesβvoices blur into each other like a faraway hum. You nod, smile, even laugh a littleβbut you feel like a ghost among the living. Youβre there, but not really there. Their world is spinning, but yours is paused in some slow-motion suspensionβyour heart heavy with something you canβt name.
Thatβs when you knowβyouβve drifted from your own soul.
We live in a world that worships productivity. Weβre taught to chase meaning like a trophyβto find it in titles, milestones, and mapped-out missions. But meaning isnβt a box to check. It isnβt a reward at the end of a finish line.
Itβs a presence. A pulse. A feeling.
It either lives in the heartβor not at all.
Some days, the heart rebels. It refuses to find joy in what used to excite us. It aches for reasons it doesnβt explain. No dramatic tragedy. No clear loss. Just a quiet ache. A spiritual fatigue. A soul thatβs tired of pretending.
We often dismiss this feelingβcall it a mood, a phase, hormones, burnout. But what if itβs none of that? What if itβs the most honest voice weβve been ignoring?
What if your heart is saying:
βThis life youβre buildingβ¦ it doesnβt feel like home.β
Iβve learned something in these moments of quiet unraveling:
Grief doesnβt always come from what happened. Sometimes, it comes from what never did.
From the words we never said.
The pauses we never took.
The truths we swallowed.
The dreams we shelved to be βpractical.β
The versions of ourselves we left behind to be βacceptable.β
And the pain that surfaces without cause? Maybe itβs the collective weight of all these invisible losses.
We tell ourselves to keep going. Keep hustling. Keep smiling. But what if what we need isnβt another race to runβwhat if what we need is a stillness? A sacred pause. A moment to come back to ourselves.
Because meaning isnβt out there. Itβs inside.
In a breath taken slowly.
In a conversation that touches the soul.
In doing somethingβnot because it earns applauseβbut because it makes your heart swell with quiet joy.
I still have those days. The ones where the world feels far away. Where people talk and I hear them, but their words donβt drop into my earsβthey just float past, like forgotten echoes. Iβve stopped fighting those days. They are messengers.
They remind me to check in.
Not with the world.
Not with my planner.
But with my own ribcage.
With the heart that lives there.
The one that thuds sometimesβnot out of love or fearβbut out of longing. A longing to be seen. Even by me.
So if you ever feel this wayβlike nothing makes sense, like youβre watching your life from a distanceβdonβt panic.
Itβs not the end. Itβs an invitation.
To slow down.
To feel.
To grieve, even the things you never acknowledged.
To reconnect with your truest selfβthe one who knew what joy meant before the world taught you how to perform it.
Because the most painful kind of emptiness is the one that arrives when weβre most fullβof things that never truly belonged to us.
And the greatest kind of healing?
It starts when we make space for silence. For stillness. For a conversation with our own soul.
Thatβs where meaning lives.
Not in the noise of the world.
But in the quiet whisper of the heart that refuses to lie.