living without intention

i’ve been trying to live without intentions. not in a mindful, liberated, enlightened way; but in the quiet, cold way that comes from bracing for disappointment. i’ve convinced myself that having intentions is just another way of having expectations, and i’ve learned over and over again that i don’t handle unmet expectations well. i carry them too heavily. i don’t know how to shrug them off or laugh about them or just try again the next day. when something doesn’t turn out the way i imagined, i take it personally. i let it get under my skin. i let it stain things.

so the solution i found was simple: don’t expect. don’t plan too hard. don’t invest too much. don’t look too far ahead. let things happen as they will. detach. i told myself it was healthier. that this would make life easier. that it would soften the blow when things, inevitably, didn’t go the way i hoped.

and in some twisted way, it worked. it numbed things. it put space between me and disappointment. if i didn’t really believe something would work out, i couldn’t be hurt when it didn’t. if i didn’t fully picture something going right, i couldn’t be blindsided when it went wrong. i became an expert in preemptive detachment. i pulled away from the idea of desire. i stopped dreaming openly. i made my wants quiet, internal, unspoken. i gave them no name so that if they died, no one — not even me — would know what had been lost.

but this way of living isn’t neutral. it’s not a soft, calm middle ground. it’s a deadened space. when you stop letting yourself expect things, you also stop letting yourself really try. you tell yourself you’re being careful, measured, emotionally mature. but really, you’re just afraid. you’re afraid of being let down again. of looking foolish. of caring too much and watching everything still fall apart. so you pretend not to care. you move slowly. you don’t get your hopes up. you don’t let yourself get carried away.

the problem is: without expectations, you start to lose direction. you don’t push yourself. you don’t fight for anything. you stop asking for more, because more always implies risk. more means hoping, and hoping is unbearable. you find yourself doing the bare minimum, not out of laziness, but out of fear. you start choosing safe paths, predictable outcomes, work that doesn’t excite you, people who don’t scare you. everything is muted. everything is controlled.

and people tell you: “you should set goals. visualize what you want. manifest it. work for it.” and maybe for them, that’s easy advice to give; because they’re not the ones who have to pick up the broken pieces afterward. they’re not the ones left sorting through the mess when it doesn’t turn out the way they hoped. but i am. i’m the one who has to carry the weight of everything that didn’t happen, everything i wanted too much. i’m the one who feels ruined by the aftermath, like i gave some part of myself to a future that never came. so no, it’s not just about setting goals. it’s about surviving the crash when they don’t land. also, you can’t bring yourself to do what others tell you, because the gap between where you are and where you might want to be feels too wide. too uncertain. too filled with the ghosts of things that almost happened but didn’t. you don’t want to feel that emptiness again—the ache of wanting, the sting of trying, the sound of silence after a door you thought would open stays shut.

so you build your life around avoidance. you start to prefer passivity. you start to become suspicious of your own ambition. even when something matters to you, you try to act like it doesn’t. you say things like “i’ll see how it goes” or “i’m just doing it for fun.” you convince yourself that caring less is a form of control. but it’s not. it’s just another way to disappear.

it’s especially difficult to live without intentions when you’re also an overthinker, when your brain is wired to plan three steps ahead, rehearse every possible outcome, and catastrophize at the slightest uncertainty. i like to prepare. i like to know. i like to believe that if i think hard enough or plan well enough, i can outsmart disappointment. so even when i tell myself i’m not setting expectations, i still do; in secret, quietly, subconsciously. i map things out in my head, create timelines, imagine scenarios where things go right just enough to feel hopeful. and when, inevitably, something small goes wrong, it feels like a collapse, not just of plans, but of emotional stability. there’s a numbing pain that follows, not because the situation is catastrophic, but because i’ve already lived through the best version of it in my head. and now i’m grieving something that never even happened.

i can feel how that disappearance spreads. it leaks into everything. it shows up in conversations where i hold back. in projects i abandon halfway through. in chances i don’t take—not because i don’t want them, but because wanting anything too much feels dangerous. because what if i don’t get it? what if i give it everything and still fall short? what if it ends, like most things do, in silence and distance and me sitting alone with the echo of my own effort?

and i know, intellectually, that failure is part of life. that disappointment is unavoidable. that risk is tied to reward. but knowing those things doesn’t help me feel them any differently. i still flinch at the thought of being seen trying. i still shrink away from the version of myself that dares to expect something good. i still can’t look too closely at the dreams i once had without feeling a tightness in my chest.

people talk about intention as a powerful force. something that shapes your reality. but i’ve started to see intention as a kind of vulnerability. because to intend something — to really want something — is to expose yourself to the possibility of not getting it. it’s to admit that something matters. it’s to care out loud. and i don’t know how to do that anymore without also feeling like i’m setting myself up to be broken.

so i keep things small. i lower the stakes. i move quietly. i try not to look too far into the future. i act indifferent, even when i’m not. i pretend i don’t care, even when i do. i call it realism. i call it emotional self-preservation. i say i’m just being practical. but underneath all of that, what i really am is tired. tired of trying and being let down. tired of hoping and being left empty-handed. tired of reaching out and touching nothing.

i want to say that this is just a phase. that i’ll grow out of it. that i’ll eventually come back to intention and passion and big dreams. but i don’t know that. right now, this is where i am. in the space between wanting and fearing. between effort and avoidance. between silence and desire.

and maybe i’ll stay here for a while. maybe longer than i should. because for now, it feels safer to expect nothing; even if that means getting nothing in return. this is what scares me the most, but it’s also what feels the most familiar.

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