To be or not to be?
I used to think so much of my life was already planned out for me.
That the path I was on wasn’t really mine — more like I was following invisible lines that had already been drawn.
My sister made power moves early.
She bought a house, built stability, moved with direction.
My brother — around my age when he started a family — built a life with structure and purpose.
Both of them found their rhythm in healthcare, serving others as nurses, walking the well-lit path that everyone around us seemed to understand.
And then there was me.
The first to go into tech — not out of passion, but out of desperation.
I didn’t have many interests at the time, just a quiet will to live,
to make something of myself before the weight of uncertainty swallowed me whole.
So I started building.
Apps, projects, ideas — anything that gave me a reason to keep learning, to keep moving.
Each one became a mirror, showing me the parts of myself I had ignored or misunderstood.
And yet, even as I grew, I couldn’t shake a strange thought:
that the very ingredient necessary for my success — my intensity, my sensitivity, my restlessness —
was the same thing that made growing up so hard.
I used to resent those parts of myself.
The overthinking.
The quiet frustration of feeling behind.
The constant need to prove I was enough.
But now I’m starting to see that maybe being an adult isn’t about finally having it all figured out —
it’s about learning to live with your contradictions.
Maybe it’s about turning the same traits that once made life difficult
into the very tools that shape your strength.
Maybe control isn’t about knowing exactly where you’re going,
but trusting that wherever you land, you’ll build something out of it.
And maybe — just maybe — life isn’t something that was planned for me after all.
Maybe it’s something I’ve been quietly rewriting all along.
Top comments (0)