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It hit me in the middle of a Tuesday, eating reheated sinigang beside a cracked window and a dying plant I no longer had the guilt to water. The sun had that lazy 3PM slant, and for once, I didn’t feel the need to conquer anything.
No new goal. No side hustle. No "next big thing."
Just soup, soft silence, and the soft rot of my once-capitalized ambition.
Once upon a time, I was starving for more—more recognition, more meaning, more numbers that moved up. I used to equate stillness with failure. Rest with regression. I wore burnout like a badge. I treated exhaustion like proof of my importance.
They don’t tell you that ambition, unchecked, is just a prettier name for self-erasure.
You wake up one day and realize you’ve been chasing a version of yourself that exists only in PowerPoint slides and LinkedIn bios.
The cult of “potential” doesn’t believe in sabbath.
It demands worship. Metrics. Motion. A productivity app for your soul.
But what if I told you the most rebellious thing I’ve done lately is choose to stay where I am?
To not apply for that opportunity. To ignore the ping. To say “no” without offering an excuse. To end my day not with a checklist, but with a walk around the block and an absurdly long stare at the moon.
They call it laziness.
I call it liberation with leftovers.
Because what if peace was never meant to be earned, just accepted? What if the life I already have—the imperfect, uneven, oddly-shaped one—was enough?
Not better than theirs.
Not optimal.
Not even impressive.
Just mine. And full.
Wanting less isn’t a lack of ambition.
It’s the refusal to mortgage your present for a future you might not even want when it arrives.
I used to think the point was to be extraordinary.
Now, I think the point is to be whole.
And today, in this quiet rebellion, with my spoon in lukewarm broth and my dreams folded neatly in a drawer, I am.
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