i'm not living, i'm just passing time

there’s a peculiar feeling that seeps in on quiet afternoons, when the sun hangs lazily in the sky, and i find myself sitting in front of a screen, scrolling through an endless feed of other people’s lives. i should be working, or doing something more productive, but instead, i’m here—existing in a sort of numb haze. and that’s when it hits me: i’m not really living, am i? i’m just passing time. there’s a world out there full of possibilities, of moments waiting to be seized, but here i am, letting life slip by as if it’s something that will always wait for me to catch up.

it’s an unsettling realization, that despite being alive, despite breathing, moving, and interacting with the world around me, i’m not fully present in my own life. i’m drifting. passing time. waiting for… what, exactly? the next big thing? a sudden burst of inspiration? something that will jolt me out of this monotonous cycle of wake up, go through the motions, sleep, and repeat?

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it feels like i’m standing on a platform, waiting for a train that may or may not arrive. and in the meantime, i occupy myself with distractions—social media, netflix, work that feels more like a chore than a passion. i tell myself that it’s okay, that i’m just resting, recharging for the “real” living that’s surely around the corner. but deep down, i know that i’m not resting. i’m avoiding. i’m avoiding the uncomfortable truth that maybe, just maybe, i don’t know what living fully even means anymore.

i think back to the days when life felt more vibrant, more immediate. when every day was an adventure, even the mundane ones. as a child, i didn’t need an excuse to live fully. everything was an experience—the texture of the grass beneath my feet, the thrill of riding a bike down a hill, the taste of a perfectly ripe mango. every moment had weight and significance, and i was completely present in it all. time wasn’t something to pass back then; it was something to dive into, to explore, to savour.

somewhere along the way, though, that changed. life became about routines, obligations, and expectations. the world told me that productivity was the measure of a good life, and i, like many others, bought into that narrative. i started living in the future instead of the present—planning for things that were always a few steps ahead, chasing goals that felt important but somehow hollow when achieved. in the pursuit of “success,” i lost touch with the simple joy of being alive, of existing in the here and now.

and now, i find myself in this strange limbo, where the days blur together and life feels like a series of tasks to check off a to-do list rather than a series of moments to experience. wake up. eat. work. scroll. sleep. repeat. it’s like i’m waiting for something to happen, for life to begin, but i can’t quite put my finger on what that something is.

is it success? happiness? fulfilment? the more i think about it, the more i realize that i’ve been equating living with achieving. i’ve been waiting for some external marker—a promotion, a relationship, a creative breakthrough—to signal that my life has finally begun. but the truth is, life is already happening, right now. it’s happening in the pauses between tasks, in the quiet moments of reflection, in the way the sunlight filters through the window in the early morning. it’s happening, and i’m missing it.

there’s a societal pressure to always be doing something—something meaningful, something that contributes to the world or at least makes us feel like we’re moving forward. it’s like we’ve all been conditioned to believe that if we’re not constantly striving for the next big thing, we’re failing in some way. and so, we keep ourselves busy, telling ourselves that we’re “living,” when really, we’re just filling up time, numbing ourselves to the reality that maybe we don’t know what we’re striving for anymore.

i wonder if part of the problem is that we’re scared to slow down, to really take stock of where we are and what we want. slowing down means confronting the possibility that we’re not as fulfilled as we thought we’d be by now. it means admitting that the goals we’ve been chasing might not be as important to us as we once believed. it means asking ourselves hard questions like, “what does living fully actually look like for me?” and those questions are terrifying because they don’t have easy answers.

for me, living fully used to mean achieving certain milestones—getting a degree, landing a good job, finding stability. and don’t get me wrong, those things are important. but somewhere along the way, i lost sight of the fact that life is made up of more than just milestones. it’s made up of all the little in-between moments that we tend to overlook in our rush to the next thing.

i think about the times when i’ve truly felt alive—those fleeting moments when i wasn’t thinking about the past or the future, but was completely absorbed in the present. maybe it was during a conversation with a close friend, where the rest of the world seemed to fade away, and we were just there, connecting in a way that felt deep and real. or maybe it was during a walk in nature, when the beauty of the world around me reminded me of the simple miracle of being alive.

those moments are rare, though, and i often wonder why they feel so elusive. why is it that the more we try to live fully, the harder it seems to actually do so? why is it that when we finally have the time to slow down and savor life, we often feel more lost and disconnected than ever?

part of the answer lies in the way we’ve been taught to view time. we see time as something to be managed, optimized, and filled with productivity. we don’t see time as something to simply *experience*. we’re so focused on using time efficiently that we forget to actually *live* within it. and when we do have downtime, we often fill it with distractions—scrolling through social media, binge-watching shows—because we’ve lost the ability to just *be*.

maybe living fully isn’t about doing more or achieving more. maybe it’s about doing less, about slowing down enough to notice the world around us, to appreciate the moments we usually rush through. maybe it’s about letting go of the need to constantly be productive and giving ourselves permission to simply *exist*. to feel the weight of our own existence and be okay with it, even if it feels uncomfortable at first.

i don’t have all the answers. i’m still figuring out what it means to live fully, to not just pass time but to truly experience life in all its messiness and uncertainty. but i do know that it’s something worth striving for, even if it’s hard. because in the end, i don’t want to look back on my life and realize that i was just passing time. i want to know that i lived, that i felt, that i was present in my own story.

and maybe that’s what living fully is all about—being present. not waiting for life to begin, but realizing that it’s happening right now, in this very moment. it’s not always exciting or glamorous, and it doesn’t always come with clear markers of success. but it’s real, and it’s ours, and it’s worth showing up for. so, here’s to showing up for life, even when it feels like we’re just passing time. here’s to being present, to feeling alive, and to embracing the messy, beautiful reality of existence.

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