the hunger to be everything.

how we disappear chasing lives that aren’t ours.

“ Oh, to wake up grateful for the pulse in my neck; to meet the mirror without dread.
I need to be enough—for myself. “

How lost we are, in the virtuality of life.

They told us we are lucky, to live in an era of endless doors; of infinite selves waiting to be summoned with a scroll, a post, or a step-by-step transformation.

But no one warned us of the disease it carries. Of how too much possibility can fray the edges of a person.

Our skin aches for mornings that begin with the light of dawn and not that of a screen. Before our feet touch the earth, our eyes have already wandered into someone else’s world. We didn’t notice when we stopped living and began watching others. We’ve become spectators of everyone and participants in nothing of our own.

We compare the raw underbellies of our own existence to another’s highlight reel. Our hopes now bloom from envy. Our bodies grow estranged.

And I have become a graveyard of personas. Restless in the presence of simple pleasures. Always terrified of settling. I used to think I was failing because I hadn’t arrived anywhere, but I’ve simply been lost in the contradiction of different maps, wandering too many paths.

I carry cities I’ll never walk and careers that died before a resume held their name. I mourn strangers I nearly loved; left behind in unread messages. Because what if, there’s someone else; gentler, funnier, easier, more aligned with me just one scroll further?

I am a thousand almosts, held together by hesitation; a gallery of repainted selves.

And I am so exhausted by this constant orbit around potential. This slow bleeding of meaning. A daily flirtation with who I am not, what I don’t have, and what I haven’t done. Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking what I wanted and started asking what would look impressive. And what society worships shifts so quickly, that mentality becomes unstable when worth is measured by trends.

They said choice would taste like freedom, but not that it’s an addictive sweetness. One that rots the stomach, until even our gut-instincts lose their sense of direction. We do not just suffer from an abundance of options, we suffer from a lack of commitment.

And I do not want more doors—I want to walk through one without looking back. I want to love something long enough to feel it love me in return. I want to lay foundations on imperfect soil and call it home anyway.

But I have lost myself in a million other people. I’m no longer fluent in my own language. I’ve consumed so many dreams that weren’t mine, I don’t recognise the hunger of my own longing.

This isn’t freedom. It’s erosion. This is the slow disintegration of self beneath the illusion that we can be anything, everything, all at once.

I am only 23, and already I am grieving a life I’ve been disloyal to; too busy auditioning for all the ones I could have instead. I’m haunted by the time I’ve given to this never-ending feed. How many sacred moments have I missed, peering into someone else’s backyard; only to rip up my own seedlings and plant what they had sown?

There is ripe fruit left untouched on every tree I’ve grown.

But I can’t waste another season exploring other gardens. I want to return to my own. To tend it, to nurture it, to reap the fruits of my efforts.

What if I told you this hunger to endure everything, this ceaseless reaching, this need to feel something more, is not curiosity, but self-exile? Somewhere along the way, you began to believe that living meant becoming exceptional; being seen; being chosen. That it meant consuming everything the world offers.

But you were only ever meant to come home to yourself. To your own food; to your own bed.

And the truth is, nothing you’re chasing will hold you. Not the success. Not the admiration. Not even the healing. Because the moment you are finally still, you will hear it—your own precious life, sobbing in the corner, pleading:

I’ve been waiting for you to stop trying to be extraordinary, to stop trying to be ‘them’, all so I can love you as you are.

Let go of the performance. The great myth was that you had to earn your aliveness. But you don’t. You never did. You are, in this very moment unfolding.

And that is enough, please, let that be enough.

Darling, you don’t want to be buried with regret. You deserve a life you don’t feel the need to escape from through a screen.

And in your stillness, in the tender ordinary of your unlabelled life, you will realise: solitude—true presence, is not the death of meaning. It is the birthplace of it.

The hunger to be everything was only ever a longing to be loved.

But you were always worthy.

Even as just one true, marvellous thing:

yourself.

—i know you’ll learn to live for yourself, amber.

The world tells you that you can be anything, so you forget how to be yourself.
It shows you everything you can become, so you abandon what you already are.
It offers you a million lives; you choose none, and lose the one that was already yours.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading—if this held you for even a moment, I hope you’ll stay. There’s more softness, more truth, more home to come. 🤍