reflections

Loneliness Isn’t the Enemy. It’s the Mirror I Keep Avoiding.

There are days when silence feels sharp. Not peaceful or meditative. Sharp. The kind that makes time drag. Nothing’s wrong, technically—no arguments, no rejections, no visible wounds. But something gnaws. It’s not sadness. Not boredom. Something colder. Loneliness. That word makes people shift in their seats. It’s wrapped in shame. It smells of failure, like something’s missing and everyone else has it figured out. But no one really talks about what it actually feels like: that restless ache to be seen, to belong, to fill some invisible …

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The Quietest Breakup: When You Stop Choosing Yourself

There’s a particular kind of loneliness that comes from staying in a relationship where you no longer feel seen. It’s not the dramatic kind—the kind with slamming doors or tear-streaked ultimatums. It’s quieter. It creeps in through the spaces between conversations, settles into the way your body tenses at their touch, lingers in the words you don’t say. And still, you stay. Not because you’re happy. Not because you don’t know better. But because the unknown feels worse. Because there’s nothing bad enough to justify leaving, no …

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Maturing on the Trails

Trekking condenses life into fast, brutal lessons. You start out feeling invincible, moving with purpose. Then the altitude steals your breath, the cold seeps into your bones, and suddenly, every step feels like an argument with gravity. You rethink everything—your decisions, your gear, your life choices. For a long time, I thought suffering was proof of effort. If my legs weren’t shaking, if I wasn’t staggering into camp half-broken, had I even trekked? I wore exhaustion like a badge of honor, convinced that the harder it was, the more it …

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The Smarter You Are, the Easier It Is to Trick Yourself

Smart people don’t struggle because they lack knowledge. They struggle because they overanalyze. Every flaw gets dissected. Every hesitation comes with a well-reasoned argument. Instead of making excuses, they build entire frameworks explaining why something isn’t possible right now. Intelligence doesn’t stop self-sabotage—it makes it more sophisticated. Meanwhile, the ones making real progress aren’t caught in this loop. They don’t have the perfect plan. They don’t know all the risks. They move first, adjust later, and somehow, they get …

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Storm-Proof

There was a time when a minor inconvenience could ruin my whole day. A snarky comment, a missed deadline, a plan that didn’t go exactly as expected—it was enough to spiral into frustration. I used to think resilience was about gritting my teeth and pushing through, but that’s not quite it. Resilience is when the storm doesn’t even register as a storm anymore. I didn’t wake up one morning unshaken by life. It happened slowly, over years of being knocked around, making choices no one understood, and standing alone in rooms where I didn’t …

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All of Me: Claiming My True Self

I learned that when I ignore the quiet parts of myself that need care, I end up feeling anxious and mixed up inside. I saw how much I had been losing of my true thoughts, real feelings, and honest wishes when I stopped trying hard to get praise from others. Each time I pushed aside what mattered, I hurt myself deeply. For many years, I moved to a beat that wasn’t really mine. I took on roles that seemed safe but left me feeling empty, and I tried to fill that emptiness with short-lived comforts that only made things worse. The parts of me …

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The Weight of What No Longer Exists

Some things don’t deserve a second thought, but they get a thousand. And somehow, it’s always the worst ones that stick—the missed chances, the words that should’ve been said (or shouldn’t have), the moments that replay like a bad song on loop. It’s ridiculous, really. Life keeps moving, but the mind loves to drag its feet, digging up old wounds just to poke at them again. Like pressing rewind on a movie that can’t be changed, hoping the ending will somehow be different. But time isn’t a magician. It doesn’t care about nostalgia, regret, or …

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What If Everything You’re Chasing Isn’t What You Really Want?

For years, I believed I was making conscious choices. I had designed an intentional life—one that didn’t follow traditional expectations. I wasn’t stuck in a job I hated, I didn’t live by rules I hadn’t chosen, and I wasn’t mindlessly following the script handed down to me. Then, cracks started to show. Not through dramatic life events, but in subtle, insidious ways. A book that shifted my worldview. A conversation that gnawed at me long after it ended. A hobby I assumed I’d fail at—only to discover I wasn’t just good at it, I loved …

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