↓

You think you've dropped the chase. You think you've burned the mask.

And then one quiet afternoon... you catch yourself polishing it.

I don’t chase applause anymore. But some days, I still reach for significance.

A smaller, subtler cage.

The kind you can almost mistake for freedom if you don't look too closely.

We were trained to matter.

From the beginning:

• Gold stars.
• Report cards.
• Job titles.
• Bank balances.
• Follower counts.

The myth was simple: Matter, or vanish.

It wired itself deep:

• Matter to parents.
• Matter to lovers.
• Matter to strangers.
• Matter even to yourself.

And even when you awaken to it, even when you burn the old maps, you can still find yourself rehearsing who you should be to deserve your own existence.

But here’s the truth I discovered that set me free:

Mattering is exhausting. Being is effortless.

Mattering requires a witness. Being needs no audience.

Mattering begs for validation. Being breathes without asking.

You cannot belong to yourself and still be performing for the invisible jury.

Pause here. Ask these gently:

What would fall away if you no longer needed to matter?

Which ambitions would dissolve?

Which performances would crumble?

Which fears would lose their teeth?

Who would you be... if you needed no one else to agree that you are?

I caught a glimpse.

It was a quiet morning. Coffee cooling on the table.

No deadlines. No notifications.

Just quiet sunlight slipping through the blinds.

And for a moment...

I wasn’t building anything.

I wasn’t proving anything.

I wasn’t preparing to matter later.

I just was.

And it was... enough.

I finally stopped striving long enough to notice what's always been true:

Being is enough.

Pause and reflect for a minute...

Where are you still trying to matter today?

Whose invisible applause are you waiting for?

And what would remain... if you stopped reaching for it?

A gentle dare to carry with you:

For five minutes, sit without trying to make it all matter.

Drop your name.

Drop your future.

Drop your past.

And just sit. As you are.

Breath and bones and nothing to prove.

Notice what aches. Notice what clings. Notice what longs to be released.

Don’t fix it and don’t explain it away.

Even if you resist. Especially, if you resist. Sit anyway.

That’s how silence stops haunting you.

It stops being the enemy and becomes the mirror.

No resolution. No gold star. No grand spiritual prize.

Just this:

Maybe you were never here to matter. Maybe you were only here to be.

You and me. Together as one.

With love,

Zaheer