A child is born  
with wild eyes and open hands
no name but wonder,  
no path but presence.  
The world is a canvas  
until the brush is taken away.

Soon come the voices:  
“Sit still.”
“Be good.”
“Don’t cry.”
They mean love,  
but they teach shame.  
And the child learns  
to trade truth for approval,  
tears for silence,  
dreams for permission.

In schoolyards and dinner tables,  
the shaping continues
bend here, break there.  
Become what makes others  
comfortable.  
Make yourself small enough  
to fit inside their fears.

The voice of the world  
becomes familiar.  
And over time,  
it sounds like your own:  
“You’ll fail.”
“You’re not enough.”
“This is just the way things are.”

You grow older,  
but feel no closer to yourself.  
A stranger in your own body,  
dressed in expectations,  
numb from years of applause  
for roles you never auditioned for.

Until one day  
the silence becomes unbearable.  
The mask cracks.  
Something inside stirs
a grief you can’t name,  
a fire you never lit  
but always carried.

And in that ruin,  
you hear it:  
the voice that was buried  
beneath all the noise.  
It doesn’t shout.  
It whispers:  
“This isn’t who you are.”

That’s when the real growing begins
not the growing up,  
but the growing back.  
Back to the wonder,  
back to the wild,  
back to the self  
you were always meant to be.

We walk on streets paved with promise,  
Eyes fixed on billboards of better tomorrows
A car, a title, a corner office glow,  
As if joy were hiding behind glass windows.  

“If I just get this,” they whisper, breathless,  
Chasing dreams sold in scripts,  
But no one tells them the price of the purchase  
Is often their soul, spent in slow, silent slips.  

They gather gold and call it purpose,  
Fill their homes with things but not their hearts.  
They dine in excess, sleep in linen,  
Yet lie awake wondering where the warmth went.

Because happiness is not in the having,  
Nor in the claps of crowds or the weight of rings  
It lives quietly in the ordinary,  
In morning light, in laughter, in small, sacred things.  

To be present is an act of rebellion  
Against a mind wired for what’s missing.  
Gratitude, not comfort, is the real achievement.  
To see now as enough is the beginning of wisdom.  

We were told to want more, always more,  
But never taught to want what "is".  
The truth is this: a fulfilled life  
Is not built it's noticed, moment by moment.

So choose not the mirage, but the meadow.  
Choose breath, and silence, and peace.  
Let contentment be your revolution,  
And presence be the wealth you never cease.

I walk in light now,  
stronger, steadier,  
yet sometimes
I miss the rain.  

There was a strange, aching beauty  
in the way sadness wrapped around me,  
a soft, invisible hand  
pressing me deeper into myself.  

When the world cracked open,  
so did I
and in that breaking,  
I touched something pure,  
something even joy could not unveil.  

Sadness made every moment vivid:  
the weight of breath,  
the tremor of hands,  
the way a single tear  
could baptize an entire memory.  

It was not despair I loved,  
but the doorway it left ajar
the invitation to strip away everything false,  
and find, at the center,  
a tenderness so raw it almost sang.  

Even now,  
as I build, as I rise,  
there are nights I long  
for the blessed unraveling,  
for the heavy, holy ache  
that once taught me  
how much meaning lives  
in the quiet places pain touches  
and makes beautiful.

One day,  
one whispered lie
lodged like a splinter in the soul  
can twist the whole arc of a life.  

It begins in silence:  
a mother’s cold stare,  
a father’s absent hands,  
a lover’s careless word
the moment they spill their brokenness  
into the chest of someone still soft enough to believe.  

They do not heal.  
They do not even try.  
Instead, they stitch their wounds into others,  
threading needles of shame and smallness  
through skin still learning how to feel the sun.  

And so a child, a friend
hungry for love, starving for meaning
swallows the poison without knowing,  
wears it like a second skin,  
carries it like an invisible wound.  

The tragedy is not just the breaking  
it is the living with the break unseen.  
It is the way we bow to the weight,  
believing it is the shape of who we are.  

Some spend a lifetime  
beating their fists against the walls of their own mind,  
blaming themselves for a prison they did not build.  
Some drift like ghosts,  
never knowing why the light always feels too far away.  

This is the quiet evil:  
to tear into a soul,  
to leave it bleeding and silent,  
and call it weak for not healing itself.  

And yet
somewhere deep beneath the wreckage,  
a sliver of defiance stirs.  

A small, stubborn truth  
a breath against the weight of centuries
begins to whisper:  

You were never the broken thing.  
You were never the wound.  
You were only the light, buried alive
still burning, still yours to claim.

My soul is the wind  
whispering softly through lavender fields,  
in Provence,  
where my essence lingers  
in gentle waves of purple peace,  
perfuming your thoughts  
with tender quietude.

My soul is the breeze  
that skims the Seine,  
in Paris,  
brushing lightly past Notre-Dame,  
carrying dreams from cobblestones  
to café corners  
an endless waltz of hopeful whispers.

My soul dances in Brittany,  
wild and free  
across cliffs carved by tides,  
caressing ancient stones,  
holding secrets  
of salt-sprayed memories,  
bold yet beautifully delicate.

My spirit soars  
over Normandy shores,  
tracing golden sands  
and solemn echoes,  
a timeless breath  
of reverent gratitude,  
gracing fields of poppies.

My heart flows  
through Bordeaux's vineyards,  
rippling gently  
through emerald vines  
heavy with summer’s sweetness,  
a quiet joy  
aging gracefully in the sun.

You can find me,  
in the Alps,  
a swift wind gliding  
past peaks cloaked in snow,  
crisp as clarity,  
untamed, alive  
with infinite possibility.

I am everywhere at once,  
a gentle gust in the Loire,  
a playful swirl through Lyon,  
the quiet calm of Corsica’s shores
every breath  
of France  
holds me tenderly.

So when you feel the breeze  
brush softly against your skin,  
know it’s my soul  
forever moving,  
always present,  
loving and alive,  
in the wind over France.

They chase the sun with hurried hands,
trading moments for the next ascent
while I sit still, a book half-read,
beneath the hush where daylight went.

A glass of red, a bite of cheese,
the scent of oil, the stroke of brush
what joy they miss in chasing more,
while I find heaven in the hush.

By riverside, the pages turn,
each word a ripple in my mind.
They run to catch what won’t be held
I breathe, and let the world unwind.

The wind speaks softly through the reeds,
the trees bow down to let me pass.
No need for gold, or shining heights
just painted skies and fields of grass.

I do not envy all they seek,
the climb, the crowd, the constant race.
My wealth is in the quiet things
in light, in life, in open space.

So let them move, and I will stay
where stillness hums like violin,
content to live the slower way
and find my joy in everything.

I used to think greatness
was about being smart
razor-edged minds,
clever systems,
the fastest path to the top.

But I see it differently now.
The ones who rise
aren’t always the brightest
they’re the ones
who stayed
when it stopped being exciting.
Who worked when no one clapped.
Who chose belief
when progress felt invisible.

Mastery has no shortcuts.
You can’t cram depth,
or download meaning.
People waste years
searching for the fastest way in
as if greatness is a door
you can trick open.
But the truth is:
the long road is the only one that lasts.

But that’s not enough.

Because if what you’re doing
drains your spirit,
if you wake up each day
dreading the hours ahead
then that’s not life.
That’s just survival
with a timecard.

We’re told to endure,
to push through jobs we hate,
to wear misery like it’s noble.
But I don’t believe in building a life
on a foundation of quiet despair.

You don’t owe anyone
your peace.

This is your one life.
One.

Not a rehearsal.
Not a test.
Not some endless wait
for later.

You were not born
to be efficient.
You were born
to feel sunlight on your skin,
to taste things slowly,
to lose yourself in a moment
so fully
you forget to check the time.

Work hard yes.
Struggle when you must.
But only for something
that brings you closer
to who you really are.
To what matters.

Because life isn’t about
titles, deadlines, or clocks.
It’s about meaning.
It’s about experience.
It’s about the feeling of being here,
with your soul intact.

So pick wisely.
And if you’ve picked wrong,
change.
It’s not too late.

Just don’t trade your only life
for someone else’s version
of success.