Existing in a world that never stops asking for more

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8mins read . Reflection . February 2, 2026

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A new month. A new year for me. Just like every other month is a new year for me.  My healthy eating journey has begun. I’m journalling while playing Candy Crush. Doing my best, one small habit at a time.

I’ve been exhausted from work and haven’t had the time or energy to sit with my writing. I tried to write about privilege, but I wandered away from the point. Even now, I’m not entirely sure what I’m writing. I’m letting myself flow. I’m not in the best mood. Everything feels overwhelming. I realise I function best in my own space; human interaction drains me more than I admit. 

Sometimes I sit by myself and wonder why we can never get enough of what we want. There is always something. Something you want, something you need, something to look forward to. And after getting the thing you were looking forward to, you begin to want another. The circle never ends. It keeps rotating. 

Do we ever reach a breaking point where we stop and say, I have enough now? Or does the circle keep running until we die? I really wonder. 

What is the essence of life? 

Sometimes it feels like a meaningless hole we keep circulating. Nothing ever truly makes sense. We sit and tell ourselves that once we get this, we’ll feel better. But when we finally get it, it suddenly loses its meaning. 

We complain while standing in the very blessings we once prayed for, the things we once asked of the universe. It’s a draining circle. 

I wonder if our very first existence was designed to end this cycle, not continue it.

From what we eat, to what we inhale, to what we do,  nothing can be done for too long. Can it? 

We’re always required to keep moving, nonstop. And ironically, you can’t even keep moving forever. You have to slow down. But you can’t be too slow either, and you can’t be too fast. 

The cycle never ends.

I remember, as a teenager, wanting to grow up so badly. To leave the shores of my parents and crave my own freedom. I even fantasised about working and studying while I was in uni, because I watched movies and reality TV where people talked about being on their grind: studying while working part-time or full-time. 

To me, that was freedom. 

I was fully sponsored by my parents, yet I saw it as confinement. I thought I was in a hole, not realising that what I called restriction was also protection. 

I tried to get a few jobs, but my parents shut the idea down. Everything was arranged for me, from top to bottom. Even so, I kept imagining the life I would live once I finally had my freedom. 

Back then, freedom simply meant leaving home.

I moved to a new country out of curiosity and ended up living the life I once fantasised about. And yet, I hated the process. I couldn’t function normally while juggling work and study. I was stuck between two worlds, belonging fully to neither. 

When work exhausted me, I needed almost a week to recover, mentally and emotionally. As a result, my schoolwork really suffered. 

Back then, if someone had told me to appreciate the privilege of my parents’ provision, I would have brushed them off as someone standing in the way of me gain what I thought was freedom. 

Now that circle is over. I’ve witnessed what I wanted to witness, the imagination of freedom in real life. And yet, every day I scream in my head, take me back to those moments.

Now, I sit here wondering what comes next, what the next desire, the next need, will be.

If I achieve my goals and tick off my bucket list, I simply set another aim to chase. In the process of achieving one thing, there is always another cycle waiting for me. 

When is the time to just be human, to rest within ourselves, to truly tune in to what we actually like? What feels genuinely reachable to make us stop an endless circle ?

This generation doesn’t make it easier. It thrives on impulse. On information overload. On endless scrolling, unhealthy lifestyles, and a kind of diversity that overwhelms instead of grounding.

Everyone wants to talk about this and that. Everyone wants to motivate. Everyone wants to teach how to make money. Everyone is a lifestyle coach. Everyone wants to be seen as doing something. 

But when does this matrix end? 

Does it end when we stop breathing, or do we ever get tired of the vicious circle? 

I’m deeply curious about this: when do we finally put our foot down and say we have had enough? 

I’ve started to think that, as human beings, we are often our own problem. I realised recently that if I were the only person on earth, I wouldn’t care about much at all. I’d be happy, eating what I like, wearing what I like, simply existing in my own space. Doing whatever. 

But I’m not alone. There are billions of us. And in that shared existence, you get checked. At work, you get checked. School, you get checked. People are looking at physical attributes, how long lasting a perfume is, what quality of leather your shoe is to get a job which is suppose to be your means of survival. 

 I know its very easy to say “don’t care what other people have to say”. But can we really deeply not care? 

All trying to impress. All trying to be cool. Trying to look nice. Smell nice. Be regarded as cool, smart, happy, useful or whatever hole we’re trying to fit into. 

Even the be yourself preachers are still people-oriented. They preach not caring, yet the message is still shaped around people. 

Independence preachers — people-oriented.
Fitness preachers — people-oriented.
Get your degree, get that job — people-oriented.
Get married, have a family — people-oriented. 

When do we ever stop? 

What are we running from that we never stop to reflect? What are we truly afraid of?

It can’t be death because the lives we live would take us there sooner than we imagine.

Sometimes I wonder if the world is designed to keep us running and searching until the plug is pulled, until we burn out, and that’s the end. Peace feels like an illusion to me. Something that doesn’t truly exist, except maybe for a moment when we’re asleep, briefly removed from the world.

Happiness feels just as temporary. Are we ever truly happy? Or are happily-ever-afters only real in the stories we were taught to believe?

In a single day, there is happiness, sadness, peace, confusion, moments of resistance and moments of surrender. Everything exists at once.

So when do we reach what is preached to us? The peace and happiness we’re told to aim for?

I think the language itself is wrong. Life isn’t meant to be one thing. It’s a little bit of everything. Sadness here, happiness there, peace here, instability there, chaos here, calm there, tears there, laughter here. But as human we chase after the positive leaving the negative aside. 

Instead of constantly selling each other ideas that don’t really exist or painting pictures that keep us searching for something we never seem to find. Those promises last only moments. Life keeps moving. You keep going.

I once watched a video explaining how the human body is, in some ways, designed to work against itself. And it didn’t feel entirely wrong.

That’s why the fitness, wellness, and healthy-eating world feels so contradictory. Don’t eat eggs, they cause disease. Eat fish instead. Then don’t eat fish, it damages the heart. Eat vegetables. But vegetables aren’t enough. You need protein.

So what exactly are we meant to consume?

Maybe we should just open our mouths and survive on air alone. But then again, I forgot  they said there are particles in the air that can harm us too. So what then? Do we stop breathing altogether?

It’s absurd.

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone said even burial takes up too much space. Oh! They already have, that’s where cremation comes in. And even that isn’t enough. It has its own objections, its own controversies.

There is always something wrong, somewhere. So when do we accept that we are our own problem? That our existence alone feels like a threat to one another?

Human existence is a threat to the world. A threat to nature.

If the world were free of humans, animals would roam freely. No one tampering with the ecosystem. No one trying to stop one thing so another can work. Everything simply existing the way it was meant to.

But with us, there is always a problem with everything.

I really wonder when we will begin to see that we are often the problem in each other’s existence.

I forgot the famous quote, “live every day like it’s your last” lol, how is that even possible? If I lived every day like it was my last, I’d probably sit in one place, not go to work, stock up on the sweetest snacks life has to offer, and just exist like that. After all, it’s my last day anyway. Why work? Why look nice? Why do any of the things we’re told to do?

But on deeper thought, maybe we really do live every day like it’s our last.

We contradict ourselves constantly, through our words, our actions, and our entire existence.