The egg, the carrot, and the coffee bean. I know it sounds a little ridiculous. Bear with me. The story goes like this.

A woman is overwhelmed by life. Everything feels heavy. Unfair. Too much. Instead of offering advice, her mother brings her into the kitchen.

Three pots of water. All boiling.

Into the first pot, she drops carrots.

Into the second, an egg.

Into the third, coffee beans. They sit in the same water. The same heat. The same intensity. When they’re removed, the change is undeniable.

The carrots, once firm and strong, have softened.

The egg, once fragile, has hardened inside its shell.

And the coffee beans — they’ve transformed the water itself.

And if you really think about it, isn’t that what life does to us?

the smallest patch of soil was never the problem.

Maybe it was always enough, to hold something meaningful,

if you were willing to stay through the quiet seasons long enough to let it take root.

What if the life you’re waiting for begins the moment you stop walking away?

I wasn’t afraid of change. I was afraid of choosing one life before I had properly lived the others. Afraid that if I settled too early, something in me would stay quietly restless, tapping at the walls of a life that looked right but didn’t feel fully chosen.

So I stopped asking myself where I should end up, and asked a harder question instead:

What is still unresolved in me?

For a long time, I confused solitude with loneliness. I treated them as the same shadow, when in truth, they are opposites wearing similar shapes.

Loneliness is a painful, negative state.

It is feeling alone, disconnected, cut off from other people — sometimes even when you are surrounded by them. It feels unimportant. Unseen. It drains you. You can be busy, productive, socially surrounded, and still feel deeply lonely.

Solitude, on the other hand, is a positive state.

It is being perfectly content with your own company. It is grounding. Nourishing. A place where creativity, fresh insight, and growth can breathe. Solitude doesn’t take from you — it gives.

True understanding of yourself is not found in the labels you carry. It is not found in your achievements, your family, your social circles, your cultural identity. It is found in the quiet moments when you are unguarded. When you are not trying to belong, not trying to survive, not trying to be anything for anyone else.

It is in those moments that you meet yourself fully. That you meet the pulse beneath the masks. The longing beneath the roles. The truth beneath the performance.

Because stepping into a new year isn’t about reinventing yourself. It’s about recognising the pieces that grew quietly when no one was watching. It’s about honouring the softness that survived and the strength that surprised even you.

Before the year closes, ask yourself gently:

• What moments from this year do I want to carry with me?

• What did I learn about myself when things didn’t go to plan?

• Where did I feel most alive, most grounded, most myself?

• What am I still gripping that I’m finally ready to release?

• What do I want to meet with more intention in the year to come?

If we’re all fractured in some way, if we’ve all felt pain, shouldn’t we show each other softness anyway? Shouldn’t we meet each other with gentleness instead of comparison, compassion instead of competition? Why are we measuring pain like it’s a contest — as if the one with the biggest burden wins?

Just listen. Just sit beside someone in their hurt. Just be a softer place for someone to land.

My darling soul, I challenge you — open your heart. Open your mind. Do not armour yourself so heavily that nothing can reach you, not even joy. Let yourself feel. Let yourself be seen. Let yourself soften where you’ve been hardened by survival.

Because this — this is courage. This is strength. This is what it means to stay human in a world that often forgets how.

And may you never confuse protection with peace.

Here’s what I know now — painfully, slowly, honestly:

If something feels wrong, heavy, stagnant, or suffocating, it’s on you to shift it. Not perfectly. Not instantly. But intentionally. You deserve a life you consciously choose, not a life you end up in because you were too afraid to choose differently.

And the moment you realise that what you’re not changing, you are choosing — you stop waiting. You stop settling. You stop letting the world decide for you. You start choosing yourself. And that’s where everything begins to unfold.

There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk, By Portia Nelson

Chapter One: I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost… I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter Two: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I’m in the same place. But it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter Three: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in… it’s a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

Chapter Four: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

Chapter Five: I walk down another street.

When we think about our journey and the people we meet along the way, it can feel overwhelming, especially as we step into new chapters of life. You’re changing, the people around you are changing, the world keeps moving, and society has put such a harsh tone on the idea of “growing apart” or “cutting people off.” But the truth is, it’s not always so black and white. It needs context.

This is where the minivan theory comes in.

Imagine your life as a van, driving forward along winding roads. There’s a front seat, a middle seat, and a back seat. You don’t have to throw people out of the van altogether, but you also don’t need everyone sitting up front with you.

Just imagine. You’re in your eighties or nineties, looking back on your life. Not at your accomplishments or the things you have to show for, but at the experiences you gathered—the ones you did for no one but yourself. Would you be smiling then? Would your heart feel whole? Would you know, deep down, that you truly lived? That you didn’t just pass through your days, but savoured them, fully, slowly, gratefully.

And maybe that’s why I’m writing this now. I’ve only had this blog officially live for a week. For years, I’ve been building up the courage to hit publish and now that I have, I’m in that strange in-between again. The thing I dreamed about doing is finally here, and yet, the question comes rushing back: what now?

But here’s the truth: this blog isn’t about me having it all figured out. It’s not polished wisdom from someone who has the answers. It’s me, admitting I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing. But I’m doing it anyway. And I’d love for you to come along. To fuck up with me. To learn with me. To grow with me.

Because that’s what this is about. A community. A space for the messy, the honest, the in-between.

For a long time, I thought happiness was something I’d finally reach when life fell into place. I imagined it as a destination — the moment I had it all figured out. A career I loved. Financial freedom. A big circle of friends. A partner who would choose me, love me. I thought happiness meant piecing together the broken parts of my family until they resembled something whole.

I looked for happiness in the lives around me. In the way people laughed easily, in their endless photos surrounded by friends, in the love stories that seemed effortless. But the truth is, you can’t really know from the outside. A picture can tell you nothing about what’s real. So what is pure unrelenting happiness?

Much like healing, I think we’ve begun to see happiness through a distorted lens—shaping expectations of what it should look like, what it should feel like, instead of allowing it to simply be.

We are all presented with some sort of choice — one being to evolve, or remain.

Sometimes it feels like that choice only appears in big, life-changing moments, but the truth is, it’s hidden in the everyday. In the quiet, ordinary minutes. In the way you choose to respond instead of react. In the way you choose to speak kindly to yourself, or not at all.

We often underestimate how much power the little decisions hold. The “I’ll do it tomorrow” versus the “I’ll start today.” The “I’ll speak up” versus the “I’ll stay silent.” Each one sends us down a path that branches into another and another, until one day you look back and realise — that tiny choice shifted everything.

Some of those shifts bring beauty. Others bring pain. And yet, both teach. Both move you forward. Both contribute to the story you’re writing every single day.

There’s something quietly transformative about entering your mid-twenties. It’s not loud or earth-shattering, not like turning 18 or 21, when the world feels urgent and full of expectation. No, 24 feels… softer. More grounded. More personal. It’s not about the milestones the world sees, but the ones you feel within.

"There is a certain rhythm of experience in which our longing becomes tested, our belonging shaken, and our sense of home no longer defined by geography or family. In this exile, we begin to realize that home is not a place at all, but a presence - a way of being in the world. There is a whisper in the soul, a memory of somewhere we have never been, and yet it calls to us with more familiarity than any known dwelling. We become pilgrims, not toward a destination, but toward a forgotten intimacy with ourselves, with life." - John O’Donohue

Home.

The feeling I crave most.

It means something different to everyone. For some, home is a place, somewhere to return to when life feels heavy. A safe haven. For others, it’s a person. Or a moment. Or a quiet sense of belonging. Home can be many things at once.

What does it mean to you?

“Meanwhile, you hear all around you how the throng of humanity thunders and sounds in the whirlwind of life; you hear, you see how people live,they live in reality; you see that life for them is not forbidden.”

— Dostoyevsky

I’ve always wondered why I got dealt this card in life. Looking at friends, family, acquaintances, even the people I went to school with—it felt like they were thriving in every aspect. And then there was me.

“Anybody who travels knows that you’re not really doing so in order to move around—you’re traveling in order to be moved. And really, what you’re seeing is not just the Grand Canyon or the Great Wall of China but some moods or intimations or places inside yourself that you never ordinarily see when you’re sleepwalking through your daily life.”

— Pico Iyer

Do you ever feel stuck? Like life is moving forward for everyone but you?

None of this would’ve happened if the chaos of those earlier years hadn’t unfolded exactly as it did. I didn’t understand it at the time. I fought it. I cursed it. But now? Now, I’m grateful.

Just like the Chinese farmer, I’ve learned to sit with life’s uncertainties. Maybe yes, maybe no. But instead of clinging to the fear of the unknown, I’ve learned to let it be.

“The process is where you learn. The process is where you grow. The process is where you develop character and find out who you are. It’s the only path to your goals. The process is the point.”

We get so fixated on the destination—on where we want to be—that we forget the importance of the road we’re walking. We grow impatient, frustrated, wondering why we’re not there yet. But how can we expect to reach the life we dream of without understanding the steps it takes to get there? Without breaking it all down, piece by piece, and building it ourselves?