Myself, a human being

Rest should feel natural. So should moving at your own pace. But for many of us, both come with guilt. When things slow down, when life isn’t rushing, when progress isn’t visible, when days feel quieter; we start feeling uneasy. As if slowing down means we are falling behind. As if speed itself has become a measure of worth. We live in a world that praises fast growth, quick results, and constant movement. Doing more is admired. Doing it faster is celebrated. So when life moves slowly; when plans take time, when healing isn’t instant, when success doesn’t arrive on schedule - we feel uncomfortable. We start blaming ourselves for a pace we often don’t control. The guilt of rest and the guilt of slowness come from the same place. They come from the belief that we must always be progressing visibly to be valid. We rest, but feel we should be doing something. We move slowly, but feel we should be running. Slow days feel unproductive. Quiet phases feel unnecessary. Breaks feel undeserved....

Bad times don't just "feel bad". They feel like suffocation. Like something heavy pressing on your chest that no one else can see. I don't try to make suffering prettier than it is. Pain is real, and when you're in it, advice feels hollow. And yet, something strange happens with time. Some of the deepest insights I've seen in people's lives didn't come wrapped in joy and clarity. They came from heartbreak, from disappointments, from nights that felt endless. There's something absurd about how much we learn from suffering, how pain becomes a kind of teacher no one asked for, but everyone meets eventually. The existential lens does not sugarcoat things. Life has no built-in meaning. We suffer, often without reason, and sometimes we break. But within that absurdity lies freedom; we get to choose how we respond. The suffering may not be meaningful in itself, but what we do with it can be. That's where the human spirit becomes something fierce and b...