Not that dramatic kind of emptiness. Just a low grade absence that festered throughout the days. It came and went, without warning, just enough to remind me something was missing. The motivation draining made discipline feel like a super power only few had.
From the outside, life seems normal. Job. Routine. Responsibilities handled. Anyone looking would see a life much like their own. That’s what makes it hard to talk about. How do you explain your emptiness to someone living the same life as you, someone who has bought into the script?
There’s no one to talk to when everyone around you is living the dream that you think is closer to a nightmare. And the people on the other side, the ones who ripped up the script, I don’t know any personally. Why would they talk to me anyway, I haven’t done anything.
For most of the past 5 years I was drone. Work. Home. Repeat. I never stopped believing there was something better, I started doubting I could find that something. The voice asking me who I thought I was to think I could succeed. The voice questioning whether I was better than those who stick to the script. Internal arguments are effective at holding you back.
The last two years have been different. Not like everything clicked at once. A slow gradual belief that I could flip the script. Seeds were being planted. Those people who ripped up the script became my mentors and they don’t know it. If they can do it, so can I. The internal arguments turned into a productive dialogue, I filled my mind with the experiences of those who made it. Slowly seeds started sprouting, I took steps.
I don’t know how long you’ve been in no man’s land. My hope is it hasn’t been long. Maybe you are reading this knowing that tomorrow you will go back to that job, the one that gives you that empty feeling, not sure how much longer you can accept this as a life you want.
I can tell you, it doesn’t get easier. The only way to fill that empty feeling it to start.
