There’s a quiet pressure most of us carry, often without realizing it. The pressure to soften our opinions. To dilute our personality. To round off our edges so we’re easier to accept, easier to like, easier to keep around. It shows up in meetings when you don’t say what you really think. In friendships whereContinue reading “You’re Not Here to Be Liked. You’re Here to Be Real.”
Tag Archives: perspective
Stop Watering What Won’t Grow
There’s a moment we all hit where something in us just gets tired. Not tired in a dramatic way. Not angry. Not bitter. Just… done. Done sending the first text. Done checking in. Done over-explaining. Done making excuses for silence. Done pretending effort is optional for some people but mandatory for us. And honestly, that’sContinue reading “Stop Watering What Won’t Grow”
More Than We Ask For
There’s a quiet truth about people that we don’t always want to admit. Most of us can tell when we’re being “handled.” Not in a dramatic, movie-villain way. But in the everyday way—when someone is trying to steer us with pressure, guilt, fear, flattery, or incentives that feel transactional. When the message is less aboutContinue reading “More Than We Ask For”
The Weight You Were Never Meant to Carry
There’s a quiet shift that happens when you finally understand this: your life gets lighter the moment you stop trying to manage other people’s thoughts, reactions, and emotions. Most of us don’t even realize how much weight we’re carrying. We replay conversations in our heads, tweak our words to land a certain way, soften ourContinue reading “The Weight You Were Never Meant to Carry”
When a Drop Becomes a World
It’s funny how perspective works. To us, a drop of water is nothing—a blink, a bead on a window, a moment that dries before we even notice it. But to the ant, that same drop is a force of nature. A whole flood. A moment that changes everything. And the more you sit with that,Continue reading “When a Drop Becomes a World”
The Crossing Paths Theory
There’s this quiet truth we rarely sit with: most of the people who step into our lives won’t stay forever. Some drift in like a breeze, soft and barely noticeable. Others crash in like a storm, loud and impossible to ignore. And then there are a few who settle in, shaping our days in waysContinue reading “The Crossing Paths Theory”
The Distance You Don’t See
We don’t always notice how far we’ve come because progress rarely makes noise. It doesn’t announce itself with confetti or trumpets. It shows up quietly — in the way you handle things that once broke you, in the calm that’s replaced chaos, in the peace you’ve earned one hard day at a time. A yearContinue reading “The Distance You Don’t See”
Smarter People Are a Gift, Not a Competition
It takes a certain kind of maturity to be around brilliant people and not feel small. To listen without rushing to prove you belong. To learn without needing to show you already know. Somewhere along the way, many of us were taught that being the smartest in the room meant you’d “made it.” But that’sContinue reading “Smarter People Are a Gift, Not a Competition”
The One Who Survived
We talk a lot about growth, success, and becoming the best version of ourselves. But somewhere in that pursuit, we forget the version of us that barely made it through. The one who held it together when everything was falling apart. The one who got out of bed when it felt impossible. The one whoContinue reading “The One Who Survived”
When Ignorance Screams, Intelligence Shuts Up
The donkey told the tiger: The grass is blue. The tiger replied: No, the grass is green. The discussion became heated, and the two decided to submit the issue to arbitration, and to do so they approached the lion. Before reaching the clearing in the forest where the lion was sitting on his throne, theContinue reading “When Ignorance Screams, Intelligence Shuts Up”
Kenrick Vaz 