The 300-page life : the unseen shift

 The end of the year has a way of holding up a mirror to our lives, and sometimes, the reflection is heavy. My feelings lately have been a series of peaks and valleys—highs of internal clarity followed by sudden, sharp lows of reality.

I’ve been quiet for a few days. Not because there is nothing to say, but because some things are so deep they don't have words yet.

We are all facing similar battles, yet most of us never open up. We stay silent not because we have nothing to say, but because we refuse to attract the hollow comfort of sympathy, or worse, the sting of being misunderstood.

Sometimes our "pain points" might sound silly when spoken aloud—a small comment, a forgotten detail, a repetitive drama. But the experience of living those moments is always harder than putting them into words. There is a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from enduring things that others would dismiss as minor.

By my age, I am convinced that if every individual tried to document their true internal life, they would produce a book of no less than 300 pages. We carry entire libraries of unspoken grief, hidden victories, and private lessons.

But learning to handle all your pains by yourself, while a mark of strength, is a lonely journey. I often find myself asking: Why do we have to feel so lonely in this process? It is a question that seems to have no answer. We become the architects of our own survival, but we build our fortresses in solitude.

We read autobiographies of people who took unconventional paths to rise above the ordinary, yet no one teaches us how to do that in the real world. In fact, our own families and relatives can be the biggest challenges. They are often the ones most invested in keeping us exactly where we are, tethered to the roles they’ve assigned us. To rise above the ordinary, you often have to disappoint the people who want you to remain "manageable."

The most important changes are the quiet ones—the pivots we make inside our own minds. It’s the moment you decide that someone else’s bad mood is not your responsibility to fix. It’s the realization that your worth is not tied to how much you are "needed" by those who don't appreciate you.

Inspite of the daily drama and the noise of the world, we must have a purpose that lasts until the very end. Without a personal mission, life is just a series of reactions. A purpose gives us a direction to live every single day, regardless of the weather in our household.

If you feel "up and down" right now, remember that you are calibrating. You are shedding the old version of yourself that accepted "less than," and that shedding process is painful.

I might not look successful to the world yet. I might still be in the same room, facing the same challenges. But inside, the shift has already happened. Once you see your own value, you can never "un-see" it. The journey is lonely, and the pages are many, but the direction is finally mine.