by Jaime Waydo
Maybe the whole tragedy of being human
is not that purpose is hidden from us,
but that it stands in the doorway every morning
quietly waiting
while we reorganize our lives around not seeing it.
Because seeing it
would change things.
And change is a kind of death, isn’t it?
Not a dramatic one.
Nothing cinematic.
Just the slow terrifying realization
that the person you became to survive
may not be the person you are meant to remain.
So we get clever.
We ask endless questions
not because we are searching,
but because questions buy time.
What if I fail?
What if it’s selfish?
What if people need me as I am?
What if I lose everything I built?
What if I become unrecognizable?
What if I’m wrong?
And the most dangerous one:
What if I actually already know?
Fear is brilliant that way.
It does not arrive screaming.
It arrives as responsibility.
As logic.
As prudence.
As the wise voice explaining
why now is not the time.
Fear builds entire universities inside the mind.
It gives lectures.
Creates spreadsheets.
Writes beautiful convincing stories
about why staying where you are
is actually integrity.
Meanwhile, somewhere underneath all that noise,
something quieter keeps tapping at the glass.
Not demanding.
Just there.
Like a life waiting patiently
for you to stop explaining yourself long enough
to hear it.
And maybe purpose is not a single leap.
Maybe it is not leaving one shore cleanly for another.
Maybe it is standing waist-deep in two lives at once,
terrified,
making up stories about drowning
while your feet are still touching the sand.
Maybe that is why we stay confused for so long.
Because confusion feels safer than grief.
Safer than wanting.
Safer than becoming.
Safer than admitting
that the life everyone applauds
might be gently starving you.
So we pretend not to know.
Not all at once.
Just in small daily ways.
We keep the dream in notebooks.
In conversations.
In “somedays.”
In half-started drafts and browser tabs and beautiful plans.
Close enough to touch.
Far enough to never threaten the architecture of our lives.
And years pass like that.
Not because we lacked courage exactly.
But because some part of us believed
the cage was keeping us alive.
Jaime Waydo 