I WISH I KNEW

The silent pressure to always be ‘Productive’ and why I’m done with it

I am clear now and you can be too.

Photo by Slim Emcee on Unsplash

We live in a world where rest feels like laziness. Where sitting quietly seems like wasting time. Where doing nothing is uncomfortable, because everyone else is doing something.

But here is what no one told us growing up: Doing nothing is also doing something. It is where clarity is born. At least for me.

I learned this the hard way during my restless days while doing my graduation and postgraduation and figuring out my life and my future. Always planning the next exam, the next project, the next step. But when did I pause? Almost never. Because pausing made me feel guilty.

It was as if stopping meant I was losing. Falling behind in the race. The race that no one actually wins.

But the truth? When I let myself stop, even for ten minutes, the best thoughts came. Ideas. Realizations. Feelings I ignored. The ‘why’ behind what I was doing.

Let me share this. During my Master’s days, I spent almost a year struggling with my thesis project. It was about using nanoparticles for biomedical detection. We tried so many ways to even begin the basic synthesis. Nothing worked. No results. Just endless…