The day I realise busy isn’t working
When all that’s left at the end of a workday is tiredness, a hollow feeling, and the sense that I’m somehow behind again… something is wrong.
There was nothing to celebrate. No progress to hold onto. Just the quiet realisation that I had returned to square one again.
I wondered where all that hard work was actually leading me.
For years, I chased security. I chased the corporate ladder. I chased the quiet ego that comes with being “somebody” in an organisation.
But somewhere along the way, I got lost. Busy turned into autopilot — a kind of wilderness where I kept moving but had no idea which direction I was heading. Only hope kept me going. Hope that things would get better. Hope that someone would notice. Hope that I was, somehow, moving in the right direction.
But hope without clarity is just an illusion.
I didn’t realise it then, but I had surrendered control of my life to hope and distraction.
Unproductive distractions gave me a cheap escape — costing me the time, the foundation, and the direction I desperately needed.
Today, I stepped off the wrong train.
That’s the quiet beauty of being human: the moment I become conscious of my direction, I can choose a new one.
I can reclaim my time, focus and meaning.
And that’s the day busy stopped working for me — the day I decided to take charge, slowly, intentionally, in my own way.